


The Vow

by RJPlummer90



Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, Biblical References, F/M, Greco-Roman References, Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, Marriage, Mind Games, Nantucket Island, Older Man/Younger Woman, Past Child Abuse, Romance, Sad times, Sexy Times, WWII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:17:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RJPlummer90/pseuds/RJPlummer90
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her mouth opens but any protests fall silent as she is walked into the American house and is forced to crane her neck to face forward once again. And then the door behind her is closed and locked. And then she is alone with Hans Landa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Landed Immigrant

She opens her eyes and immediately regrets doing so. That incessant noise is back, besides the dull ringing in her ears, there is a constant shifting in gears on the floor underneath her and each time the gears shift the battered wood on which she lay throws her body forward a good inch of uncomfortable lurching. Such sudden movements that the surprisingly elastic vehicle repeats combined with the nasal roar of the engine make for a very uncomfortable scene to wake up in. The means of her current transportation, if she can even call it that, was not the leather upholstered automobile she is accustomed to, she can say that much.

The tires screech again and the caravan gives a muted rumble, causing vibrations she can feel all over her body, the same body that has just moments ago lay dormant for god knew how long. She turns on her side and fumbles for balance as she purchases her weight on her knees or at least tries to, the moving vehicle combined with her inexplicable nausea makes for a slow sense of awareness matched with a rapid pulse. Her hand slides along the curve of the bench, it is without padding and damp from the cold air that resounds in the rectangular space. A lot of bodies can theoretically fit inside the caravan, providing they are all sitting with matching pairs of boots and muskets slung over their shoulders or between their knees.

But she, oh she, is laying with her body prone in the measured isle of foot space between the benches that lined either side of the caravan and it is an uncomfortable and vulnerable place to be in. The task of slipping onto her front turns to be a complicated and slow effort for a woman as young and virile as she, but once she achieves her goal she is left unsatisfied. What exactly is she going to do with her new position? Hide, where? Run, where? Her attempt at sitting on the bench is more like rolling onto the bench, but at least with her cheek pressed against the roughly sanded wood and her knees and fingers hanging onto the higher structure with a muscled grip, she entertains the reassuring prospect that she is prepared for whatever is to happen once the vehicle eventually reaches its destination.

That destination is presently unknown to her but she assumes at some point that particular disadvantage will cease to exist. Perhaps, quite possibly in the same breath that her life will also be no more, all in the same pursed breath of air, the same snuffing of a flame purchased atop shaped wax. She rolls onto her back and takes a deep puff of air, feeling suffocated all of the sudden and her hands come to her chest in a vain attempt to soothe the pressure that is developing there. This pressure, this suffocation that she feels now is fear, pure and unmarred fear that grips her hard and steady. She has a perverse idea to smile for what a fickle and sneaky entity Fear is indeed. She had never been in a position to fear for her very life or existence, what-have-you.

No, this young woman in the back of a what felt like cedar but was most likely a cheap plywood military caravan, has never once had to measure against two disagreeable odds or take her chances at security and survival. She has turned a blind eye to the unfortunate wrong doings unto others so long as she herself will live out the war, stake her claim as a sideliner to the Third Reich and assumed that surely not one person would blame a mere Nazi wife-

When the tarp over the caravan is thrown open with a billowing, noisy flourish, the light is pure and sheer blindness. She does not care that she must look a sight, with the combs in her knotted hair surely broken, her skirt is riding up past her scratched knees and the grimace of an old hag cracks at her mouth , her eyes squeezed shut in a mute squint. Her left hand comes up to shield her face and with it her discomfort and hopefully but most unlikely, her fear. Two sets of hands clamp around her arms, thin as reeds they are now that the Reich has collapsed and its glory swept under the carpet along with the sweet meats, warm pastries and sweet syrups and honeys.

Twenty-four weeks of rationing preserves and hard cracker crumbs have pulled her young skin tighter across her rib cage and she has never felt so unprotected by her own flesh. How exactly did she end up here, the sun beating down hard on her forehead and two strange men propelling her forward into the unknown? Security. The pursuit of her own well being in its present as well as future was what spurred her on to reach out to her families solicitor, to dictate and purchase the documents that would indeed sever all ties she had with the gold band on her fourth finger of her left hand, on the same hand that is now raised against the chilly winter air shortly before she is hauled up and out to land on uneven pavement. She hears the strange mans words but does not reply, he speaks English and after a few moments of staring at her hoping to see a sign of understanding on her part and when he receives no such indication for she is confused and still adjusting to the brightness, he simply nods and continues to walk her to the awaiting building.

She is like a bucket of lead in front of these Americans, even as they sit her at a stark white table and chair and bring her water and tea and small biscuits, she is wary of their courtesy. She feels a spark of anger coil in the pit of her belly when she watches with half-open eyelids as a man in a green uniform sits across from her and smiles, all grins, all hospitality these silly, cheeky Yanks. Her anger is not directed at this man of course, not at this grinning and blue eyed Private Marks, but at the fact that by her own folly in filing official documents she has been lead to the presumed OSS headquarters, the one day trip that she quite accidentally but on purpose has tried to avoid. She is not a war hero, she is not even a known party member, all she is now in front of this young man is a lone German woman with no promises made to her save for the vows a man made to her very long ago, or at least it seems very long ago.

"Cigarette?" Private Marks flashes that full-toothed grin again. It makes his eyes crinkle and look like they are shining, as if he were to cry yet clearly he carried the highest of spirits. He had a spring in his step just now when walking to the table and subsequently sitting down across from her. She looks as if she is about to shake her head but pauses and reconsiders her refusal. She nods and selects one of the slim wrapped tobacco sticks from the case of a dozen and is careful that their fingertips do not brush. She slides the end between her lips, it is no lavender embossed silver cigarette holder and her fingertips will stink without one but she lets the quick discomfort pass.

Once she is lit by the Privates lighter she leans back in her seat but her limbs are not relaxed, she is no femme fatale, never has been and never would be. The hand that does not hold her cigarette up to her lips curves tightly around her body, her bicep rigid and shivering against her breasts. Her body feels damp with sweat and she desperately wishes to take her hand and scrub at the fine hair at the back of her neck as she can feel the dampness in her own scalp, and she wonders if her table partner can too smell the rank stench of her vulnerability.

The Private inhales his cigarette deeply and deftly flecks the ash against the table. "I was told about how you were transported to us and I can only offer my sincerest apologies, ma'am." He looks embarrassed as he speaks and there are two spots of color that swipe along his cheeks, childish in it's soft pink. She almost smiles, but inhales her own cigarette instead.

"Furthermore, with regards to your...ehm..files of divorce, they are not exactly a private matter if the woman..the wife files for said dissolution of marriage. You must give reasons you see, for the reason..the reason why you must..you wish, to end the legal union. Reasons that would prove foul play or false treatment-" He coughs then and pardons himself, catching the cigarette between his teeth as he looks over the contents of the folder spread out before him. He is reading his lines and still stuttering over them and the fact that she is being (interrogated?) interviewed by such a young soldier should give her comfort but it does no such thing, quite the opposite.

This young fellow may truly lack complete prowess in machinations of the mind or she may be witnessing one of the most fantastic actors she has ever met, and she has met quite a few. More specifically she has met a man that can make you smile and make your spine shrivel in a very small margin of time. The war has jaded her, as has the company she has kept.

The Private is looking at her now, awaiting a response. She automatically raises her eyebrows as if to say she understands and when she does this there is a look of relief on his face.

"Oh good, I was thinking you didn't speak any English.." he is sliding his finger down the right hand column of the page he is looking at and taps it firmly, smiling again. "But now I see your file says otherwise. Well good, this will go much quicker then I planned." he says.

She nods again, appearing unaffected at the mention of her 'file'. Of course there is some surprise and a general feeling of unease but these are, correction these were times of war after all. She watches with flickering eyes as he clears his throat and shuffles through the papers before him, making slight whistling sounds as he inhales and exhales air between slack lips. It makes the vein in her temple thicken and twitch with irritation and she flicks her thumb over her brow.

"Just to re-cap here, you filed your papers for legal divorce from your husband on the fifth of March for this year. Those files went to your family solicitor, Herr Goeren and because of the sensitive nature of those files he was obligated to submit them to us, the OSS, for review." he pauses, widening his cerulean eyes again in her direction. The way he says 'Herr Goeren' like "Hur Goorin" makes her smile and he takes the gesture as a sign to continue speaking.

"However, it is in the interests of the OSS to provide certain stipulations to matters concerning these papers-"

She interrupts him, a frown creasing her mouth and pulling at her temples. "Stipulations?" she says sharply.

He fumbles slightly with his cigarette and nods. "Yes ma'am, stipulations. Because you listed no reasons for the terms of your desire for divorce, the opposite party has the right to make claimants against..the claims..you make..made." He is looking down at the papers again and she is narrowing her eyes as she notices condensation gathering on his upper lip. It was sweltering in the room and it made the bile in her belly threaten to rise.

"I don't understand." she speaks slowly. "I have partaken in no illegal activity, I am a citizen of Germany and willfully offered my home to the Russians when they took Berlin-" she has her speech carefully constructed and memorized and while her imagination has envisioned more of a calm persona unlike the way her voice is now steadily rising in hysteria, she knows what it means when the enemy, correction the liberators, begin to speak in terms that she does not understand.

The Private raises his hand and she feels her mouth slap shut like a bear trap. However his face is not wearing an expression of annoyance, merely concern.

"Ma'am, the OSS is aware of what you are saying and that is not the issue here today. The issue is.. is that we have consented to meet certain demands of the Germans whom have provided us with aid and honorable peace making." Again, he looks as if he is reading from his page and she wants nothing more but to swipe the entire file off the table.

She flicks her cigarette and clutches her body even tighter, her fingers splaying between her rib bones. She jerks her head for him to continue.

"Long story short, I have been ordered to provide you with your proper documentation and declare you a landed immigrant of The United States of America." he claps his hands together, as if he has just purchased a fine automobile or won a chess match.

She sputters, literally sputters and coughs into her hand. The Private frowns then and fumbles for his handkerchief but she waves his extended hand away.

"I am to live in America? What if I want to live in Germany?" her voice is hoarse now and she cringes at it's hint of pleading. Alright, she didn't want to live in Germany exactly, not anymore. She has always thought of living in Vienna or Paris, though neither of those cities are exactly eager to invite Germans to nest.

The Private blushes again. "Well ma'am, I am sorry to say that is just not possible. The OSS has agreed to provide you with protective services and transport you to The United States for the duration of your legal dispute." His gaze shifts then, and she knows that by the nervous movements of his leg humming and bumping under the table that there is more to his orders but whatever it was he is not divulging them to her, not right now at least.

She remains silent and takes another drag of her cigarette and then snuffs it on the table. Private Marks nods and stands from his seat. "Safe traveling, ma'am." he tips his head to her and leaves the room, taking the folder with him.

The next three days pass by like a compilation of one very long lifetime. There is a train, a boat, another train and finally an airplane. The last method of travel has been the worst sort of torture she has ever endured. For a woman who has now only flown once, she can heartily shout out to the masses that she will never do so again if she had anything to say about it. It is on the second train that her chaperone's realize the skirt and blouse she wears is no longer passable. They stand on the outside of the train apartment doors as she bathes in cold water from a jug and braids back her dry and brittle hair that was once thick and luxe. She barely affords to see her face in the mirror but when she does she frowns at the purple under her eye sockets and the bright red in her tear ducts.

She squeezes herself in the middle of her two chaperone's in the back of the automobile and clamps her thighs together tightly so that her knees do not brush against theirs. She has been provided with a stark white collared mens work shirt, a tawny colored suit jacket and gray pinned slacks. She wears no stockings, just wool socks and loafers. The pants are the smallest they could find but still loose on her waist, she can feel the buttons folding against her belly and they rest low on her hips when she walks from the plane to the car. She wears her own brassiere, dirty as it is for the female chaperon has provided her with only a fresh pair of underwear for undergarments. They are also too big but at least she feels somewhat clean.

The older woman also insists on staying in the room while she bathes and dresses but she understands the precaution, at least it isn't a strange, leering man and for that she is grateful. However, compared to what she has heard of other women, those she has never met and those she has shared a conversation with back when she was another young beauty of the Reich, she will gladly endure a man taking pleasure in only watching her groom herself. She can see houses now through the window of the car and is unprepared for the vehicle to pull to a stop. She is expecting another slate gray building with covert American agents inside, only this time they will be less 'covert' seeing as she is now in their 'home front' so to speak.

The agent on her right steps out of the automobile and holds open the door. When she hesitates, he reaches in and takes her hand, helping her out of the automobile but letting go of her immediately. She almost prefers the boyish uncertainty of Private Marks to this stand offish forty-something agent but she has not seen the blue eyed American since their interview. The man turns and begins to walk up the path nearest him without saying a word and she casts her gaze to the female agent in the car. The woman does not look at her and she is overcome with a steady uneasiness. She hurries to catch up to her male chaperon. There is hedging on either side of the walkway which makes what she assumes is a house to be rather privatized from the remaining street.

She rounds the corner of the hedge and her eyes fall on the back of the agents head encased in his black bowl hat and she watches as he walks up two sets of four steps each and she follows, her eyes focused on that bowl hat. He is quite tall really, and the way he sways in his steps reminds her of a large oak tree. He stops in his tracks and she stumbles into his back but the only reaction she receives is a small grunt. Apparently, not every American prefers to indulge in conversation and she remains standing behind him as he knocks on the door of the house. She tries to look up and get a better view of the building but standing as she is on the steps and with the agents Neanderthal height (and demeanor) she fails to gain a fair view of it. Her head snaps back to attention when she hears her name and she remains rooted on her stair, even as the tall man steps out of her path to reveal something (someone) she knows to expect but still wears an expression of shock on her face.

"Ah, Mein Liebe. You have come to join me at last." his voice is soft and slippery, like oil. She remembers his face, his stature, his stride but she is unprepared for his voice, for that voice. He speaks in English except for the endearment, for he intends the American to witness and comprehend their reunion. She has never heard him speak English before. His smile is slow and heart-warming like that of a smile worn when faced with genuine surprise. He isn't surprised to see her, he has expected her. He walks down the steps, the heels of his shoes clicking on the stone and she feels her jaw grow tight in concentration. Those foot falls match the slowing of her heart beat, the blackness she can taste behind her eyelids, the closing of her trachea.

"Hans. You look well. I am glad." She speaks quietly though she had intended her voice to be strong and haughty. She curses herself, what she has meant to say was "Hans, sign the divorce papers and be done with me you bastard of a man." But no such words leave her mouth, oh no, how could they? Wasn't she now the victim of her own speculation that one had much more courage when theoretically speaking to another but when it came time for the words to flow and the performance to begin, all bravado was lost?

He tossed his head back and laughed heartily, exposing his throat, displaying such ease and regard as if she had not seen him in..well..she couldn't remember from the top of her head, '43 perhaps?

"Come inside, we have much to discuss with one another!" he speaks jovially, and then his hand is snaking around her waist and he is tugging her towards him, his fingertips firm against her covered flesh and she sees a brief frown shadow his smooth lips.

"And apparently you could use a good meal as well, that is no matter, I will take care of you." he speaks the words while looking exactly into her cautiously narrowed eyes while his remain flat and insistent, challenging even. She is no master on the mans expressions. She just nods dumbly and feels her feet lifting and dragging up the steps. The eyes of her husband crinkle in delight and she turns her face away from him in one last gesture of independence before she reaches the door. Her eyes follow the retreating agent, again with his back to her as he descends the stairs and disappears behind the hedge. Her mouth opens but any protests fall silent as she is walked into the American house and forcibly cranes her neck to face forward once more.

And then the door behind her is closed and locked.

And then she is alone with Hans Landa


	2. Culinary Ennui

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new home, a new life and a disappointing revelation.

She keeps her back to him as she regains her breath. Her chest feels like it is turning in on itself and the only visual she can produce is that of rolling dough.

Smooth, clench, turn. Smooth, clench, turn. Don't be afraid to go a little tighter now. Yes, just like that, a flat roll is never attractive.

There is a tingling in the base of her spine, slithering up her vertebrae. The sensation comes from the base of her neck and she can feel the warmth of another's breath misting the finely haired skin there. Her chin raises involuntarily, exposing her throat to nothingness. There is a chuckle close to her ear and then Hans Landa is facing her. She focuses her eyes over his shoulder and then back to his face. It is a habit that displays her discomfort and again she berates herself.

His face is blank and absorbent, as if he is waiting for the right verbal or physical cue from her to conduct his expression. He is speaking now but her peripheral vision has caught a movement, one that he is making with his own hand. He speaks at a polite volume, not loud like a drunkard nor quiet like a hermit, he speaks like he is very, very comfortable in this situation. Their situation.

"Your hair is the longest I have ever seen it." Is what he says. There is no following praise nor complaint, neither "It quite suits you", or even "I preferred it before."

It is then that she realizes what caught her attention. It is the movement of his right hand, the repeated smoothing of his thumb over his remaining fingers relates directly to the quaking in her back and chill at the base of her scalp. He has tugged (so faintly) at the bottom of her braid when he walks behind her, and now his hand still moves, still caresses, as if her hair, dry and dead as it is, is still in his grip. Rubbing, measuring, determining its value. When she sucks in oxygen through her teeth, her bottom lip goes with it and she knows her cheeks and forehead grow hot.

"I was never one for short hair." she replies but he is already turning away from her and there is no doubt that he expects her to follow him, and her voice is left unanswered, hanging in the space between them.

The floor in the foyer consists of a dull white tile with dark scuffing marks that will never disappear no matter how many buckets of bleach and damp chalk sponges taken to them. Someone else has lived here before her husband, perhaps a young family with little children with cherubic grins and strawberries between their fingers or an old American widow, cursing the socialist Krauts with her last stale breath.

There is a bench as she looks to her left and a framed mirror over that bench. Does Hans Landa straighten his hat and smooth the buttons of his coat in this mirror before he takes a brisk morning walk when the air is still damp and his limbs are still tingling as his blood revives them? Or does he take leisurely evening strolls with his belly full of a warm supper, carrying a book that preaches the ideals of a man that came before him? She does not know if her husband enjoys walking for pleasure like she does. She assesses her own reflection, eyes wide and mouth pinched and she notes the bench has a twin on the opposite side of the rectangular room and beside it, a coat stand.

The door a few steps ahead of her creaks and Hans is holding it open as he walks through it. He is holding it open for her but does not cue her for the gesture. When he feels her palm take the door he lets go, his fingers are much wider then hers, thick in their margins and without freckles or raised tissue. His finger nails are short and rounded like she remembers. He turns to walk left and her thighs are tight as she tries to tread lightly and inconspicuously behind him but the floors in this room are cherry wood and though they gleam they are not new and the panels creak and snap with certain steps they both make.

This new room is spacious. There is a bay window to the left, the grand structure of glass that she could see on the outside of the house. Following the left wall there is a fireplace, another large three part window with a cushioned seat. On the right there is a bookshelf and a few vases. The room has beige walls and she believes that this house must have been gifted to Hans with the furnishings included. Though she has never been completely certain just what kind of man Hans Landa is, she knows that the floral pottery that is placed strategically between the trivial paperbacks and dictionaries on this book shelf to be a womans touch. Possibly the decorative choice of the Kraut hating widow or the mother of the beautiful, sticky, American children.

There are two sets of matching, comfortable looking chairs with arm rests on either side of the large windows and two darker chesterfields in the center of the room spaced together in an 'L' shape closest to the fireplace. She does know that Hans enjoys the heat from a fireplace as opposed to a furnace. He told her that the second time she met him, when she was nineteen.

He does not speak to her as her eyes sweep along the room. He takes his time walking to the opposite end where there is another door, without a crystal knob like that of the foyer but with a curved metal handle. He is giving her time to take in every detail, as if she will be needing it and the thought irritates her. She follows his foot steps and her hand reaches out to graze the decently sized glass table behind the chesterfields. It is raised high on clawed feet and has six chairs around it, one at each end and two on either side. There is nothing on the table, just the light from the second large window, the one with the cushioned seat. This is the table that the widow or the young mother would serve important guests at for a fine dinner party or buffet brunch. She takes a deep breath, her own mother had possessed such a table. Her mother had possessed many things that were of importance.

Again Hans is holding open another door and again he does not look towards her, he looks forward into the next room. A kitchen, most probably. She feels a knot seed in her stomach. It does not fertilize and mature yet, but it is there, encased safely in its pod. Seedlings begin their lives in opaque pods that nourish the seedling until it is planted in fertile soil. She has studied Botany at University.

She wishes to end their marriage, she shouldn't care if he acknowledges her or not. She should not. She does not. She will not. But the pod bounces in her stomach and threatens her convictions.

She is right about the next room being a kitchen. But she is much more interested in the sliding glass doors straight ahead from the doorway behind the modestly round wood break feast table and she abandons her careful treading and unlocks the sliding door and pushes it open with no difficulty. She steps out onto the light wood floors and this time her back is to him and she cannot help but feel more at ease. She cannot see his movements and machinations and while this should cause her to feel trepidation (this does), she is delirious with recognition of the familiar.

The deck she stands on is roofed and well insulated for she does not feel as chilly as she did when she stood outside on stone steps and there are more windows that allow her to see the garden below. There are two iron benches and a small pond in the garden. She cannot see if the pond is home to fish, it is too far away but fish are not what interests her. Plants are what interests her, and there are plenty of them hanging from baskets supported by wire secured in the sunken beams of the ceiling and the daylight that splashes from the windows make the dew on the green stems and leaves and the light and dark colored petals look like they are sparkling.

Another chuckle grazes her shoulder and she feels his hot but dry hand push at her hip. His thumb is low enough to press into her tail bone.

"There is more." he smiles, his teeth small and and white. He waves his hand forward, nodding his head to her right. His hair is auburn indoors but shines like wheat in the fresh sunlight that envelopes them now and her eyes fall on the smattering of carefully trimmed gray that has started at his temples but goes no further. He did not have this fine, gray hair when they married. She was twenty-two then.

He walks her forward. There are two sets of stairs. One is of four that ascends and leads to another portion of the covered deck, the same windows and hanging plants but there is furniture. A rocking chair and a chesterfield with a blanket. There is a small table before the chesterfield and a single book is set on it. She pauses and bends forward to read the title.

The gold cursive on the forest green cover of the book reads An American Tragedy and a laugh catches and pushes past her dry throat, there is no moisture to swallow it. (When did she last have water?) She means that laugh to be bitter in emotion but it sounds like true amusement, like genuine hilarity. It sounds friendly and she does not wish to be friendly. She has no knowledge of this novels ideas, characters or moral dilemmas but it is the title itself that has her reeling. He does not acknowledge her reaction, merely gazes at her with his brows hitched but she does not try to explain herself. He already knows why she laughed like she did and his silence causes her to second guess herself.

He beckons her closer and she complies, following his line of vision. "That staircase leads to the garden terrace." he explains. He turns his face then, watching her with a quirk to his mouth. He is awaiting her approval and for a moment she considers joining his charade and exclaiming "Oh dearest, it is wonderful! The grass is so green and groomed and the benches are so picturesque. The bird feeders in the willow trees are an especially nice touch." And while she truly does enjoy the sight of birds and has not awoken to the sound of them singing in years, she will not say this.

Instead she nods without a word but his half smile and shining eyes do not falter however they do not advance either. She wants to turn to him and hit him. She wants to scratch her nails along his clean shaved cheek, curl her fingers on the edge of his pointed chin and twist. She wants to align her thumbs into the base of his throat, in the place that is half hidden by the crisp collar of his creme oxford and press down. And then while cutting off his oxygen she would demand he call out his damn masquerade and give her what she wanted and what she wanted was a divorce, not a beautiful garden on this breath taking island with its crisp air and shining sunlight.

She blinks rapidly and turns away from him, descending the four stepped stair case. She feels like a little girl by the overwhelming urge to kick her feet when her desires are not attended to and she allows her steps to fall hard on the stairs. It isn't much but it assuages her for the time being. Her thoughts shock her and her hand grips the banister so tightly it creaks but this is an old house. She is not a violent person and she surprises herself. She hasn't surprised herself since 1943.

When she is first to step back into the kitchen she supposes she is now leading her own 'tour'. She turns to her left and briefly assesses the hot stove and cooler, the double sinks and white cabinets that are ceiling high. There are two doors to her right, both of which she, not he, opens. The first is a storage cupboard, the second is a cellar. She reaches up and pulls the cheap chain cord and the uncovered bulb hums to life, illuminating the first half of the staircase. She does not walk down the steps of the cellar. She does not like closed spaces and she does not like the dark.

She can practically feel his smile as he stands behind her. His smile is more than likely one of triumph, for he has succeeded in turning her fluster into anger which she predictably showcases by hurrying through the rest of the house and handling its contents as if they were her own and not solely his. She pulls the chain again and the light ceases and she is turning back and closing the door behind her. Her loafers make soft padding shuffles with each of her steps and his shoes click steadily behind her. He advances one step for her every two.

She is pushing open the second swinging door that exits the kitchen and to the immediate left is a lavatory. She hovers in the door jam and her eyes catch the porcelain sink and mirror, the raised bath tub matches the white modesty curtain held up by a horse shoe shaped slide in the ceiling. There is a small stain glass window. Quickly though, she veers from stepping into such a small confinement and her back brushes her husbands chest. She ducks her head, her hand comes up to cover her mouth. Her throat is dry and her nose has leaked clear and thick since her transportation from Berlin. She coughs and starts to hurry down the corridor. She can see the door to the foyer again, left halfway ajar by herself.

Her hand is encased by flat, smooth flesh and she stops in her tracks. She is not pulled back, there is no jerking of her arm. The touch itself is enough to pivot her body and turn it towards Hans.

"Ah ah, you are forgetting the master bedroom." he purrs. She raises her eyebrows, as if to say, "Did I?" He puts no pressure on her hand to tug her forward but releases it as he steps back and gestures her forward, his now free hand making a sweeping gesture, blunt fingertips directing her to the door on her right. He is saying please, after you madam, and he is mocking her hurried demeanor.

He is watching her unfold before him and betray her mantra of self control and she has been in the house for nay under ten minutes.

The woman he married would have combed her ruffled feathers, squawked her dislike for him.

This woman is different, she has to be different. Or else she will never survive Hans Landa.

The master bedroom is spacious enough. It has a closed off entrance, creating a blind spot on her right side until she walks further enough to escape the panels of wall and only then is the entire bedroom revealed. This alone unnerves her. This would be the bedroom that her husband sleeps in, a bedroom with structural advantages. Around the corner of that wall is a bookshelf that lines the other side of the blind spot. There is a small desk beside the bookshelf, the size one would use for personal correspondence. Behind her, further towards the wall with the window (again with a cushioned seat) is a large enough bed with an iron frame.

It is not a four poster monstrosity like the house in Berlin, but it is theoretically spacious enough for two people to sleep comfortably, husband and wife with arms wrapped around each other and knees aligned with the backs of the others thighs, pressing hotly. There is no adorning cushions or beaded throws decorating the bed, just a simple coverlet pulled over the swell of two pillows and tucked in tightly and precisely at the sides. A trunk at the foot of the bed she assumes holds extra linens and thicker blankets for the winter months. There is little frivolity in this room but she eyes the bed, a luxury she has not enjoyed this past week.

She turns around and he has stayed in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. She meets his eyes steadily and he, not she, is the first to break the contact. He bows his head, his lashes long (and they are blond and can rarely be seen but they can be felt) and grazing his slight cheek bones and he removes his left hand smoothly from his pocket and gestures again for her to continue out of the bedroom and down the corridor.

It is then that she chokes and makes a small sound and watches in embarrassment as his mouth curves. This time she is paying attention to his hand gestures, because this time she is not envisioning herself asphyxiating the man or similar.

On the fourth finger of his sweeping left hand is a gold ring. A gold band. A gold wedding band.

He wore his wedding ring for one day, and that one day if her memory serves, was the day that she married him and he married her.

Son of a bitch.

She forces herself not to play directly into his ploy and does not say a word regarding his no doubt unfamiliar accessory. A thought strikes her as she passes him in the doorway and begins to walk back down the corridor, this time much more calmly, her gaze focused on the foyer door. Did he wear the same wedding band that she put on his finger with barely steady fingertips in January of '38? Probably not. His departure to this island was a hasty one and she knows this to be true. It could be the band of the man who used to live in this house, maybe the husband to the young wife and the father of the beautiful cherubic children or the husband of the old hag..widow..whatever she was.

She shakes her head slightly, for she knows her reasoning to be unlikely. These fabricated people whom she has fantasized to have once lived in this non-fabricated but in fact very tangible house are just that, fantasy. She is no different from when she was nineteen in many ways, her wild imagination being the forerunner.

They are back to where they started at the front of the house by the foyer. To her right is now the family and dining room and to her left is a study or office. She does not go inside the study or office, she is tired of touring this house already and she already saw the large desk and full book shelves as she walked past. She turns to face her husband and has her address to him prepared but catches sight of another door and looks thrown off. It is a door directly across from the foyer and she is embarrassed to admit that she did not notice it before.

"Up there are two more bedrooms. But they are not in use. It would be pointless to air them when there is only two people here." he says with a knowing laugh, chastising even.

There is no question that they are to sleep in the same bed then, in the strategical master bedroom.

Silly girl. Such a silly, stupid girl.

She is struggling for an answer, for a refusal but her belly growls loud enough for both to hear.

"I couldn't agree more. I am quite peckish myself and I promised to fatten you up, didn't I?" he teases her and her face is hot once more.

They sit at the modest round table in the kitchen and she thankfully sips the cold water and slowly eats the cold chicken sandwich he has provided for her. She hasn't had real bread in months and she wonders as she digests if her stomach will take kindly to it or not.

"I am sorry to provide you with such culinary ennui, but I am a man used to restaurants." he chuckles and chews his own sandwich heartily but his eyes remain thoughtful. Deducting.

She raises her head and stares at him hard then, her brow furrowing.

"I haven't exactly been dining at The Ritz, Hans. Your culinary 'boredom' will suffice." her tone is icy and annoyed. He knows damn well that she has been starving for six months.

It would be like him to laugh, at least so she thinks. That is what he has done in the past when she could no longer be a silent additive to his every musing and provided him with a quick, nerve sore response.

But he does not laugh, he continues to chew with his hand posed around his water glass and his gaze does not stray. He does not speak, so she does.

Her heart is hammering. She hasn't envisioned this conversation to be happening with both of them sharing a table, taking a fresh and delicious meal. Preferably a few stilted, to the point letters at the very lest. Actually, she hasn't envisioned any sort of conversation happening between them at all. She has envisioned Herr Goeren sending word to her that her trans-Atlantic divorce documents are signed by Oberst Hans Landa and then she would sell her gold wedding band for the highest price (hopefully more than double franks) and leave Germany.

Well, she has already left Germany now hasn't she?

"I do not wish to impose on you any longer then necessary Hans, I only wish to collect the divorce papers." she says firmly. Her voice does not waver once and her mouth quirks.

His brows knot together but his eyes are still dancing with mirth. He swallows once, twice, and then brings his water glass to his lips. He drains it in three long sips and his eyes remain open. He sets the glass down with a light thud on the wood table and she watches as his throat moves and works the sustenance through.

"Why would you ever believe yourself to be imposing on me, mein liebe?" his voice is amused and his hands rest on the table. He is deftly rubbing his thumb over his fingers again and she swallows. The same hand that tugged on her hair earlier.

She takes the chance to look away from his hands, from that hand by sipping her water. But her glass is empty, she drained the fluid from it on her last sip and she sets it down, more then flustered now. She squirms in her seat and crosses her legs under the table, facing her body towards him. He has mirrored her same position at the same time she has posed herself in it and she finds herself watching his trouser clad knee. His trousers are chocolate brown and it is a flattering shade for a man of his coloring.

She reaches up and fiddles with the end of her braid, the long coil danging over her shoulder and grazing the top of her clothed breast.

"As I said, I only wish for the divorce papers. P-" she stops. She was going to say 'please' but reconsiders a moment too late. She shuts her mouth and her tongue swipes over her teeth.

The laughter that comes forth from his diaphragm is so sudden and startling that she physically jumps in her seat and her crossed knee hits the underside of the table. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut in mirth and every one of his teeth are exposed by his wide mouthed expression. She could see his tonsils if she dared lean forward.

When he straightens, his chin once again faces forward and the fine tendons in his throat no longer shaking with effort and his expression is decidedly sober.

Hers is livid. She opens her mouth, the high sound of anger bubbling in her throat-

His voice is hot steel as he interrupts her before she even begins. "If you truly believe that I intend to divorce you, the remainder of our marriage is going to be very bleak indeed."

Her nostrils flare. She tilts her head in incredulity and opens her mouth again-

His hand is quick as it reaches forward and covers hers, fingers closing over her wrist. Hard. The hot air leaves her as she strains to pull her body away but her wrist is pinned to the table and her struggling is nearing on comical.

"This is a new life for you and I, mein liebe. I am a war hero and you are the wife of a war hero. We are Americans now." his tone is jovial, excited even. His eyes remain narrowed.

She does not respond and he does not expect her to for he stands from his seat and takes her empty dishes. She is hesitant to move her wrist from the table even though his hand has since softened and released her. He places the dishes and the sink and she is surveying the red indents on either side of her joint. Her fingertips are white from where they gripped the wood as he gripped her.

"Might I interest you in a walk around the block? Our neighbors have been asking after you." He winks then and rubs his hands together and she wishes to be sick.

She stands from her seat, holding the table as she does and carefully pushes in her chair.

She follows him out of the kitchen, down the corridor and to the foyer.

It is enough time to blink the tears out of her eyes before she braves the neighbourhood.


	3. Caricature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A walk, a woman, a day dream, and a nightmare.

The sun on this island at this time of day is medium in the sky. It is not high (morning) or low (night), it is just medium. This is all very well for her, it means she can walk with a careful expression on her face and not a grimace nor squint. If she were forced to wear her face in a position of contortion, surely her displeasure would reveal itself. But for now as her loafers meet the soft pavement, her knees bending one after the other as her slight hips shift back and forth (you have a lovely décolletage dear, but the hips of a boy), she is able to swallow her distress and enjoy the sight of some place new.

The sun is not covered by even a tuft of cloud and the American air fills her nostrils and lungs with a near sting. It is so fresh and fragrant that her lips part and she emits a soft sigh.

"I knew you would agree with my favorite past-time, mein liebe. The weather here is so..exhilarating. You can taste the freedom, yes?"

He is most certainly trying his hand at irony and begrudgingly, it is working. These simple, happy people grazing on this simple, happy island are entrapped in their own ignorance. It is the greatest, most basest reward an intellectual and self-reasoning man like Hans could ever receive, and a gift given by this islands government no less. The OSS thought that by throwing the German Colonel a house and a garden (fetching iron benches notwithstanding) they were proving their participation in infiltrating a double agent into the Third Reich and subsequently taking a credit for Operation Kino.

Oh, and she was also still married to him. We shan't forget that.

In fact, the matter that she is still married to Hans Landa is testament to the OSS' willingness to keep their back alley charade with her husband afloat.

"However, it is in the interests of the OSS to provide certain stipulations to matters concerning these papers-"

She wishes to be back in that damp but somehow also sweltering room to wipe the boyish grin and virginal blush from Private Marks' face. Stipulations. Demands would be the more appropriate wording, the demands of a 'war hero'.

He pats her hand. When they had embarked on their mid-afternoon journey, she assumed he would lead their expedition. It does not take a scholar, even an understudy, to conclude that Hans Landa enjoyed control. He walked ahead of her and lead the path down the scrubbed stone steps at the entrance of the house. His house. Their house?

But he halted in his advance once he neared the walkway and turned to watched her until she landed the last descending stair. And then he reached out, that damn wedding ring shining in the light and she did not hesitate to touch her fingertips to his open hand. She could feel the grooved lines etched deep into his fleshy palm. She startled herself in wondering if the divots around his eyes and mouth felt the same. He had gathered her hand up, his fingers brushed the inside of her wrist and she winced but his back is still too her as he lead her around the hedge. As they reached the sidewalk, he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows and her thumb dug into the wrinkled cuff while her fingers splayed over the bend of his forearm.

Now as they continue to stroll, her hand curls slightly as he speaks to her and the smattering of hair under the pads of her fingers is quite soft and flat actually and not at all coarse or wiry.

He pats her hand again, not reverently but in the attention seeking manner. A soft rap of her knuckles with his own.

"Do you plan on avoiding conversation with the neighbors as you do me, or do you limit your frigidity to your husband only?"

She does not apologize for her dazed demeanor and the fine hair on her own forearms rises in annoyance. She jerks her head to face him. She is typically as patient as the day is long. One had to posses the patience of a holier being when bi-hourly overturning the same group of soil fraction, ensuring that each overturn collected the equal amount of essential moisture to feed a bed of speckled tulips. Symmetrical gardening be damned if you overturned a soil fraction too late. When the beds bloomed, the petals would color as the beautifully ripe orange and onyx like the jungle predator of its namesake, but the stems would be weak and brittle and the rare beauty would snap in half and wilt in the dirt.

Botany aside, when her lines were blurred and unsure, when they threatened to be part-tangibility and part-imagination or even completely the latter, her only mechanism was to strike out.

Hans knew this about his wife when he made her acquaintance in 1935. And he knows this about his wife, now, in 1945.

She halts her steps completely and with her hand still tucked into his body (she can feel the side of his pectoral with her knuckles), Hans also pulls to a stop. He is regarding her with complete seriousness now, even anger and she shivers. She expected a raised brow and eyes wide with mock concern. Perhaps even a, "Have I offended you, mein leib? Mon petite femme? My weak-willed Eden?"

She practically snarls as she speaks. "I have already said all that I have cared, and will ever care to say to you H-"

"Hans! Oh Hans it is you! Yoo-hoo! Over here! Oh, isn't this just so funny!"

The woman that approaches the couple from the other side of the street is disorientating to say the least. Hans has turned to regard the vixen with a grin, one hand laying flat in his pocket, the other coming around her back. His fingers pinch her bum and she elbows him sharply enough in his ribcage that he coughs.

"Oh Hans! I was wondering how much alone time all of us should be given you and your wife and all, but I see now that she's here! Get'in to know your surroundins' and all can be such a nerve-wracking thing."

She immediately dislikes this woman. Her day dress is a belted navy blue with large pink flowers printed all over it, even on the upturned collar. Such a noisy dress. And she admits as she watches in silence while the woman speaks that were this particular neighbor an ugly woman, she would forgive her grating voice and even forget her pronunciation of the word 'thing' as 'thang'.

But this woman, this stranger to her but not to her husband has an attractive shape to her breasts, a wasp-like waist and slim golden calves. Her hair is curled tight and blond as creme, like Jean Harlowe and she is absolutely doe-eyed. The revelation that this woman is familiar with Hans does not escape her, nor does it surprise.

As she predicts, her husband has fed their neighbor (no, his) untruths.

"You know, after everything our resident Colonel has told Jeremy and I about you, I expected someone older! Who woulda thought you'd be such a fresh, pretty thing!" she giggles then, and the noise is even more shrill then her rather musical voice. She decides this woman is a lash batting characterture and the smile that creeps onto her face is not a genuine smile but she knows the woman believes it to be for she wears a Cheshire grin of her own.

"Oh, silly me. You know I would lose my own head if I – never mind that. My name is Darcy, Mrs. Landa." and most unexpectedly, for her that is and not by this womans inherent character at all, Darcy lurches forward and hugs her. If she were a proper woman and a proper wife, she would have offered her familiar name for Darcy's use, but she prefers slacks to a-lines and she never remembers to moisturize her tepid body after her evening bath and she is hardly a proper wife.

Darcy's breasts looked like the soft and fleshy variation but, deceptively they are hard as boulders and they are painful when they squash into the sensitive space between her own breasts and her collarbone.

She doesn't try to conceal the 'oof!' sound that she makes and Darcy immediately retreats.

"Darcy is easily excitable." Hans is chuckling and Darcy is blushing and twisting and crunching the tip of her pump in the sidewalk, waggling her bronzed calf back in forth in a slow, purposeful motion. She is saying, "Oh, Colonel Landa. You made me, the innocent, realize the error of my un-lady like behavior. How will you punish me?"

You have been such a naughty, naughty girl.

Darcy is murmuring about how she must return back to the market, that she and Jeremy are selling pies there. Apparently, her husband has tasted such pies. She wonders if Darcy has been inside their (his) house, inside the living/dining room with the creaking floor boards, inside the dark and damp cellar that she will never step foot into and into the strategical master bedroom.

Darcy has retreated to the other side of the street and they are turning to walk back to the house.

He turns his face towards her and bends his mouth close to her ear. His breath is warm.

"She likes you." he croons.

"No, she likes you. She has anticipated me." she sighs tiredly.

Her hand is still in his damn arm but she doesn't yank it free. This is a strange place filled with strangers and her husband may be many things but he is precise and he knows his way around cities, towns, museums and homes with discontenting ease.

In 1935, she knew his way very well around her fathers Berlin townhouse. Well enough that he found her bedroom after all other guests had retired for the evening. He entered her bedroom without knocking closed and locked the door behind him. She was sitting in front of her vanity and had unpinned her hair and removed her pearl chandeliers and was about to struggle with her gown. And the affair she had worn that evening of her nineteenth birthday bash had been scarlet and entirely sequined, with a bowed tie around the neck and completely backless. The seam slits swirled around her knees when she had danced with countless other party members and ranks, not him. She only danced once her first tumbler of cognac was warming her belly for even though she is of a tender age with a spry body and opportunities worth less then there gain, she is frightened of herself.

And in her bedroom they sat by the window and spoke about philosophy, politics and the metropolitan. She had said that the Nazi party were missing their mark. They had the heart Germany needed but they were in danger of entrapping themselves in extreme right wing-ism, the paramount opposite that their manifesto professed. He had told her right wing or left wing, north or south, east or west the parties select aversions and affiliations had no resounding consequence on his views.

What are your views? She had asked.

To be human is to err. He replied.

She leaned forward, her feet having long slipped out of the silver buckled pumps that mashed her toes together.

Do you err, then, Oberst? She wore lipstick that was a shade darker then her dress and eyelashes made of mink, a gift from her mother, and she felt like a woman and not a girl that night.

My dear, I can most certainly assure you that I err as you do. You may err more so then I, you are young and flighty yet. He chuckled.

And she had stuck out her bottom lip and thrust herself back into her seat, interrogation forgotten. She had announced that if he insisted on insulting her that she was no longer interested in his company.

But her voice had quavered and she thought she covered it by laughing in the way that her mother taught her, chin rolled high with tresses waving over the shoulder and eyes never scrunched nor mouth too wide just effortless and charming.. And he laughed in return but his eyes blazed in victory for he had uncovered her insides as sure as the velveteen satin of her gown rested snug over her straight hips and high, young breasts.

And when he willfully set his tumbler, completely full, down on the desk and made his way to the door, she followed behind him for good measure, suddenly afraid of their discovery and wishing him gone from her bedroom.

And he turned to look at her and leaned forward and kissed both of her cheeks. His hand came around her back and she was startled to feel the direct placement of flesh on flesh but she rememberd the risqué cut of her gown and flushed from her neck to her ears. His hand slid down one, three, five of her vertebrae and she was once again a girl-child.

The supper they share in their (his) island kitchen is a ham soup and though it is not savory nor is it a delicacy, she has been without a hot meal for six months. She bathes in the claw foot tub and does use the modesty curtain even though the door is closed and locked. The set of drawers under the sink and nearest the door are also pulled out for good measure. The term 'modesty' curtain is indeed fitting for it casts a dark shadow over the lower half of the bath tub and she can focus more clearly at nothing and therefore she avoids looking at her body and her pale, sunless skin. It shines in the natural light and in the water like moon stone and she is disgusted by it.

They jointly fold down the bed and he is first to crawl onto it. He shoots her a smile as he props himself on the side nearest the door, leaving the left space that is closer to the window available to her. He remembers, alright. He turns off the lamp and the only sound made is that of their breathing. She could moan aloud at the gift of a down pillow under her cheek but only inhales deeply. She does not object as his knees come to the backs of her thighs and his arm loops around her hip. She is too tired now that her head is down, and she is frustratingly comforted by the contact and by him.

When she is jolted out of a sleep barren of dreams, she scrambles to turn on the lamp. Her spine is flexing in alarm and her hair is sticking to her face. Hans is panting and barely awake, his body is damp with chilly perspiration and he is whispering about making a deal.

She stands from the bed, fully intending to sleep elsewhere.

But she returns with a towel from bathroom and he is no longer stirring, his hair is standing up in shaken bunches and she can feel the raised scar on his forehead as she smooths it back to lay flat again.

She uses the towel to dab at the sticking sweat on his brow, his neck and his hairline.

He rolls onto his side and groans her name.

And she slithers beside him, like the serpent in Paradise, and she poses with her tongue flickering and tasting the air and she watches her husband sleep.


	4. Wireless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A discussion, a thank you, a garden, a comfort.

Hans has risen before she has. She sits up straight in bed and gathers the dressing robe hung over the bed post to her right, she intends on wrapping it around her body this cold morning as silently as possible in order to not wake him (and thus converse with him) but when she turns her head he is no longer beside her.

His share of the sheets and coverlet is tucked over his pillow. When she peeks out the window she is surprised to see that the clouds have not fully revealed the sun just yet and the skies are still painted dusky pink and cool grey.

Years ago, when she shared a bed with her husband, she knew him to be an early riser as a military man often was, at least the dedicated serviceman. But he is 'retired' now and she fully expected him to be enjoying his mornings in bed, perhaps with a partner, perhaps that partner would be Darcy, or Annabelle, or Mary or some other young, impressionable woman of this small neighbourhood.

She opens the drapes and turns back to flip the rest of the covers over the pillows, smoothing the coverlet over the mattress in quick open-palmed motions.

It hardly matters to her what proclivities her husband invests in.

Besides, she doubts his choice of female to subjegate to his carnal attentions would be Darcy. The loud mouthed blond is attractive, most certainly, but after one breif meeting she knows the American pin-up to be the town gossip and therfore the most strategical of neighbours for Hans to divulge his stories of war heroism and his impending (awaiting with bated-breath) reunion with his beloved German wife.

Star-crossed lovers forced apart by the Third Reich, declarations of love and the promise of the American dream. Oh she is certain without a doubt that he has sewn all of these seeds and Darcy has harvested them.

She snorts in irriation as she slouches gracelessly onto the vanity stool, opposite the bed with the sturdy iron frame. Beginning at her hairline she begins to braid her hair back tightly, all the way down her crown and scalp and continuing at the base of her neck to the tips. The style is practical and tidy for the most part and she feels a certain sense of order when it is woven together without bunching.

Her hair has grown long but she does not wear it long, she wears it tucked away and it suits her needs. She cannot stand the feeling of the dead, dark strands touching at her face and tickling her cheeks and forehead. It is too vulnerable.

She stands from the vanity after a quick admiration of her dexterity and steps into the en suite bathroom. It does not have a tub like the main, but a showerhead, toilet and sink. She sniffs around for soap and finds a foiled bar. She washes her face in quick moments and pats her skin dry with a towel that is still damp on the drying rack.

She pauses and inhales. It smells of him. She looks to the shower basin and sees the droplets of water still fresh and she folds the towel back onto the rack. She looks at her face in the mirror. Dark eyes, dark brows, dark beauty marks: one on her right cheek, two more in close alignment on her left jaw under her ear. She has had a light spattering of brown freckles over her cheeks and nose since she was a child, nothing would ever diminish them.

She slips out of the bedroom, steps through the swinging door and in to the kitchen. She hears the wireless and is right in assuming Hans to be there already. He is sitting with his back to the corridor entryway, the morning gazette unfolded in his hands. He does not turn his head, who else would she be?

She follows the smell of coffee beans and pours herself some of the bitter juice from the warm decanter over the stove. She is startled to realize she has reached towards the cupboard above the stove and taken in to her hand a china coffee glass. She is on auto-pilot, she is comfortable here in his house and this disturbs her.

When she walks to the table and takes a seat opposite him he does not look up from his paper, but he does murmer a morning salute. She responds by slirping at her coffee and taking a handful of the ripe strawberries that are set in the center of the table. She holds them in her lap, forgoing the round serving dishes and chews and sucks on them relatively silently. She dabs her fingers clean on the edge of her mouth and swips her hands over her lap, holding them in place over her crossed knee.

"I need some clothes, Hans. For the duration of my stay." she adds. Her bare foot is swinging from where it dangles higher then the other at her crossed position and she is watching him with raised brows as she runs her tongue over her teeth, still tasting the sweetness of her breakfeast.

He folds the paper in quarters and sets it beside him. He responds as he does so, his voice carrying over the sliding of his hands along the waxy print.

"Yes. I'm aware of that." he smiles.

"I'm surprised I did not have a trousseau awaiting me, what with all your other preparations." her voice carries an unmistakable venom.

"Preparations?" he frowns.

She sips her coffee, swallows hard and she scalds her tongue.

"Darcy seems to be quite the biographist on you, more specifcally you and I." she elaborates through a clicking jaw.

Hans chuckles. "I'll admit, I have told her much of you."

"Too much, most likely." she leans forward to look him squarly in the eye. She refuses to regret doing so, as she has in past..conversations.

He regards her with a quirk to his lips and a hardening of his eyes.

"No." he murmers, his voice is tender and it makes her stomach tighten.

"Never too much, darling." he continues.

She snorts for the second time that morning.

"I'm sure." and it is all she can respond with and she throws herself back against her seat like a petulent child and he is watching her with expectancy. He says nothing else, but continues to wait for her to speak. She is seething, and so quickly! She has been conversing with him less than a minute and her heart is in her eardrums. She swallows hard and her tongue is uncomfortable and heavy in her mouth. From the coffee, of course.

"I will need some day slacks to work in. There are parts of that garden that are wilting. I may as well tend to it while I am here, I do not appreicate eye sores." she says quietly as she crosses her arms.

"The American government purchased this property when I told them of my wife's hobby in Botany." he smiles.

She scrapes her front teeth over her tongue and her eyes blink back at him stupidly. He is aware she is a certified Botanist.

"How considerate of them. The government should have no trouble in hiring you a gardener to tend to the soils once I leave-..here." she intends to say leave you but her courage fails her once again.

She stands from her seat and begins to march-

But he is extending his arms and he has snatched her into his lap, one hand clamping around her right buttock, the other around her ribs. Her breasts break her fall, cushioning against his collarbones and she yelps and swats at his hands. But as she twists and pivots and she falls further parallel to the floor and her left side is entirely across his lap with her feet extended, pointing towards the tile. Her bare soles make rubbery sounds as they fail to find purchase.

He has slipped his arm between her shoulder and her head with her cheek resting on the crook of his elbow and he smiles down at her almost reverently. Her left hand is useless against him as her fingertips now graze the tiled floor, the inside of her arm dangling beside his chair. She is enraged and reaches her untrapped hand to hit at him but he catches her wrist and presses his lips to her palm, humming in pleasure.

"What the hell are you doing, Hans?" she tries to jerk her wrist away but he holds fast.

"Thanking you, Greta." he looks mildly offended, as if she should realize the significance of his sudden assault on her person.

"For what?" she chokes out. She is still pulling her wrist and he is still holding her tightly. Her face turns into his chest and her lips graze his nipple and she can feel it harden with her hot breath.

She suddenly tightens her buttocks and tries to angle herself up and away from his groin, just in case.

"First I should apolgoise for waking you from your sleep last night. I know your journey has been a difficult one and to be roused when you only just settled was no doubt startling for you."

She stares at him and does not reply. He does not need her to, he is already speaking again.

"And then you so gently cared for me, how could a husband not thank his wife?" he grins.

She sputters.

"You..you were asleep!" she flushes to her hairline.

He looks as if he is contemplating his words.

"Yes, and no. Your ministrations touched my heart, and I didn't wish to startle you..or for your tending to cease. I have a weakness for nurses." he is enjoying himself far too much.

She goes still and narrows her eyes at him.

"Did the nurses have such a soft spot for you when they changed the bandages on your forehead?" she whispers.

He flashes the frown she desires, but his eyes absolutely shimmer in delighted fury.

"Oh Greta. Very good. Very good, indeed." he breathes.

And he bends down and pushes his tongue past her lips and her fist pounds at his chest, hard enough that surely she must be bruising him but he growls and holds her tighter to him, his teeth biting at her lips and he is rocking his hips against the flesh of her thigh.

His hand pinches around her jaw, opening her mouth to him and she gasps for air and she is allowed one inhale of rushing oxygen before she is again covered by warmth, and wetness, and cedar, and clover, and strawberries, and coffee.

She will think back to this morning for years to come, the morning that she enabled her own debasement. She will try to rationalize herself, as she always does.

That afternoon as she works on hands and knees over the sagging tulips in the garden, she pulls on the stiff muscles lining the insides of her thighs and the backs of her calves as she rocks back and forth with each thrust of her shovel. She draws her knees tighter together as she leans on one hand, using the other to churn the soil with her own fingertips.

She sits back on her heels a moment as the strain on her back becomes too great and groans softly. She is sore between her thighs and she exhales roughly then and lurches herself forward once more, churning and digging and patting and smoothing and indenting and deepening and curving and ribbing. It is not enough, it will never be enough and her sore body mocks her efforts.

That evening she sits at the kitchen table with him and they speak of the beginning war trials in Germany over soup and sandwiches. She has been in the garden since the afternoon and where he has been she does not know, nor does she ask. She has awoken alone twice today.

She washes the dishes in the sink and dries them with the rag over her shoulder. The wireless is on and a woman sings in english and she recognizes the tune as a german redux. She laughs out loud and begins to hum along, singing softly in the language in which the chorus was originally written.

She fills the bath in the main bathroom and washes herself diligently. She scrubs at her loose hair with her nails in tight circles until she feels nothing but smooth texture under her fingertips. She runs the cloth inside her ears and in between her toes. She takes the straight-edge razor, lathers some creme and carefully shaves the areas in which stubble has sprouted. She hears Hans' measured footsteps falling down the corridor towards her and freezes in her motion, her foot dangling over the mouth of the tub.

But the footsteps turn and go presumably into the strategical master bedroom and after a moment she resumes her bathing.

She too walks into the bedroom not long after him. Her hair is damp still and slung over her shoulder and the dressing gown is cool against her flushed skin. She strolls to the vanity as if she were at perfect ease but her knees are watery. He is sitting up in bed, chest bare and his eyes remain on the book before him. Again, with An American Tragedy.

"Tomorrow maybe, or even the day after, we will see about some clothes in town?" she murmers. She is running a brush through the ends of her hair, quickly removing the tangles. She watches him through the vanity mirror and he does not look up from his book.

"Yes." he agrees.

She nods and sets the brush down on the table. When she stands and removes her dressing gown he is marking his page and putting the book on the side table. He turns off his lamp as she slings the silk gown over her side of the bed post, the rest of her is clad in a starched sleevless nightgown, another of the limited clothing choices that had been given to her to travel with.

When she slips under the sheet and coverlet he immediately comes closer to her. She allows him to kiss her (again), to press his mouth and tongue to her neck (again), to bite down on her breasts (again).

And this time she is absolutely participating in her debasement because her hands are in his hair and her calves are around his back and then she is raising above him, and her hands sweat as they grip the iron frame and she shows him what she wants and how he is to give it to her.

She cannot truly say that she has missed him, but she has missed feeling and pleasure.

She can be like him. She will be like him. She will take her uses and she will break his heart (unlikely) and she will be free of him.

She is doing a service to herself for once because she need not bother with courting a lover or with instructing a young man on how to please a woman. How to please her.

Hans Landa already knows.

This (not the beating of his rapid heart beat or french murmerings) is what comforts her into a deep sleep.

This time, both are undisturbed until dawn.


	5. Karl Guelke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A boy, a cellar, a terror, a passion.

The next morning she awakens alone once again. The right side of the coverlet and sheet are tucked neatly under the pillow as if she had slept alone. This surprises her for she had surrendered to sleep the night before with the satisfied deduction that surely Hans would sleep much more deeply and much longer then he usually did, surely even well into the morning. But her husband is fond of routine and more specifically, having the upper hand.

A small part of her frowns inwardly. Her presence or no presence, surely her husband cannot be regarded with suspicion for keeping to a schedule. But she forces her invisible frown into a grim line of weary acceptance for she is no fool and has developed a careful eye for detail in the years that she has been addressed as Frau as opposed to Fraulein. She remembers that only yesterday (and every morning since) she felt horribly ill when confronting the already settled Hans at the breakfast kitchen table, jaw clean shaved, sandy (and yet dark, though not as her own) hair gently pomaded, clean fingernails curved around or under the pages of his morning correspondence or pleasure read. Hans remembers it as well, and surely he intends for her to continue to feel sweaty, pale and unsure.

She feels the beginnings of bile rising from her stomach to her esophagus and she makes a nude dash from the bed to the en suite. She falls hard on her knees and they immediately throb in protest against the ivory tile. When she wretches, she makes a horrible sound, a low keening noise that exhales through her nose. She pitches forward to wretch again, and again, and again, and the last effort has her wheezing and coughing violently. She has not held back her hair and when she wipes away driblets of sweat on her upper lip combined with the remnants of her insides, her fingertips are positively vibrating as if they were placed over an automobile motor or a space heater.

The attack has been so sudden that she hovers over the toilet for longer then necessary. Her limbs are like that of a marionette and she is plucked and flicked in to the shower by a will not her own. She leans heavily against the glass doors and the water is nearly freezing as she takes loud, deep, shuddering mouthfuls of air. By the way her chest is scraping, heaving and falling in a rhythmic, hyper ventilative tantrum, she thinks that she must be crying. Sobbing, even. But she makes no sound, no whimpers or wails of discontent and she cannot see out of her eyes properly but she blames it on the spray of the shower head.

When she weakly pushes through the swinging kitchen door, Hans swivels in his chair. His eyes flicker to the ticking wall clock and then back to her, almost imperceptibly, almost as if he is deciding if he should berate or question her. He says not a word, not yet, but he does not turn back to his empty plate and cooling coffee and he watches her take a handful of strawberries and pad over to the table. She walks slowly and when she sits down across from him she refuses to openly grip the table for support and the muscles of the backs of her thighs and calves spasm intensely as her punishment. She does not look at him and she stares at the strawberries in her hands. She knows he will say something, he cannot resist it.

"You took a long time in the shower this morning. I hope you are not feeling unlike yourself, I was hoping to garden with you today." he says over the quarterly folding of his paper.

A strawberry tumbles out of her hand but she does not lean down to pick it up and mutter with embarrassment over her clumsiness, her hands clench too tightly on the tender fruit and they squirt their flavor between her fingers.

Hans has never 'gardened with her'. Ever. The only time he took a remote interest in her Botany was when introducing her to colleagues at the height of his growing popularity in The Reich. Ah, Hans, and this must be your beautiful wife. No wonder you keep her hidden away to yourself, you ol' dog. Wise man you are, very wise man. A nameless, portly be-medaled and medallion uniform would say and her husband would chuckle and his fingers would tighten over her hip (so daringly close to the curve of her tail bone and buttocks) and he would often respond, Yes, my darling is often so immersed in her Botany, her University degree has certainly done her well! Of course the wife of Hans Landa, hunter of the Jews, would be an educated wife. She will tell you just exactly how to prolong the longevity of your tulips and roses, but she will not discuss the Allies if you please.

"Yes, I should like to garden today." is her quiet, relinquishing response. She turns her head and looks out through the glass doors leading to the veranda and yard and she assesses the potency of the weather. She sinks her teeth with relish into a dripping strawberry and swallows despite the churning in her belly. Hans nods his head in agreement after a moment and stands from the table. He pours a cup of coffee from the stove but does not sip it himself. He stirs in a hairs inch of milk and sets it before her on the table. She drinks it quickly without a word and she does not clear the table, she weaves quickly and heavily out of the kitchen, down the hall and to the front door. He is following her and still she does not speak, she only leads the way.

They are outside not even ten minutes and she realizes that Hans has not only never tended a garden with his wife, he has never tended a garden period. She openly snorts in annoyance. She has yet to touch the front yard and had planned to master it herself as a small project but this morning he has other designs. She is not overtly concerned, surely he will become bored after a short while. The sun is shining and it creates a halo effect on the crown of his hair, making it shine a lustrous wheat as he looks at her, awaiting instruction. Her knees feel watery once again and she beckons him over to the flower beds nearest the hedge. On the other side of the hedge is a long gravel path, going between the neighborhood and presumably into the tall evergreen trees. A forest, perhaps. He has caught her gaze but does not offer an explanation and she continues to silently speculate.

She has left her working basket on the front steps the day before (for she did in fact intend to do this today) and she sets it down beside him. He has followed her lead and gone down on his knees and her hand brushes his strong thigh as she reaches for the shearing scissors inside. She hands him the second and larger pair and he accepts them slowly and carefully.

"I don't use gloves-" she begins.

"I know. I have seen you." he interrupts with a grin. He pauses and removes his wedding band and she watches with a snarl curling her lip as he places it in his pocket. She doesn't say a word, her cheeks are burning and they inhibit her speech. Hans reaches forward and intercepts her left hand on its passage to the cool, damp earth. She gasps softly, interrupted from her entranced home coming.

"Tsk tsk." he chuckles and removes her thin wedding band (too easily, her fingers are no longer fleshy as his are) and pockets it in his oxford. He pats his chest, telling her wordlessly that he will keep it safe. She does not thank him for the gesture, just as she did not thank him for pouring her coffee.

She does not know how long they have been outside on their knees but her patience is growing thin. The end of her braid swaying with her movements and it coils up and slaps her chin every time she jerks her face towards him with more and more impatience. She has shown him how to churn with his bare hands and separate the root from the sewn nerves under the soil without causing damage to the plants still alive and though he is doing fairly well (he is quite capable, actually) for a novice, her blood boils. This is hers, these flower beds and the hanging baskets and the netted herb enclosure, they are hers. Just like the six rows of double soiled organza plots and the semi-circle divan of rose bushes (dusky pink, blood red, and even meringue yellow) in Berlin were hers.

"What are these? The flowers that were here?" his breath is warm and tickling her ear.

She sighs impatiently. "Tiger lily's, some of the petals are still undergrou-, don't pull on them, Hans!'

She swats his hand and the backs of her fingers produce a satisfying slap! He chuckles deeply and he nudges his shoulder against hers, as if they are comrades sharing a private joke and she releases a deep breath. He is enjoying her chastisement, and she refuses to look at him, for she knows he is wearing a simply adorable expression of the innocent gentleman, eagerly awaiting his female companion to depart her knowledge to him.

She disliked when he wore that expression in their courtship, it made her wary of him, perhaps (most definitely) excited, for while he made it conceivable that he was not mocking her interests in Botany, or Greco-Roman studies, or her dislike for caviar and red wines (it tastes like stale grapes), the glittering in his eyes birthed a stirring in her belly and a warning in her senses.

They are both quietly working in a rather seamless effort, save for her occasional reprimand ( "Do not be so rough Hans-", he chuckles knowingly, "Oh, hold your tongue you dog!")and for a moment she forgets that he is even intruding on her private joy. She hears the turning of bicycle wheels on the path behind the hedge and looks up out of instinctive curiosity. The boy, well not a boy but certainly younger then her for she is nearly thirty, has cocoa colored skin and honeyed eyes and when he smiles at her it is blindingly white. She is entranced by the color of his skin, smooth and catching the light at the high point of his cheek bones. He still has not broken eye contact, and she takes in his long, straight nose and full mouth. His almond shaped eyes crinkle and still they hold her own, and he rides straight into the street.

She hears the automobile honk and swerve it's tires but it continues down the road nonetheless, but she stands when she hears the bicycle and the boy collide with the pavement. She runs out around the front entryway and to the other side of the hedge. She can see the boy slowly rising up from where he lays face down on the street. She quickens her steps and crouches down beside him and her hands come to his shoulders. She helps him stand and he is bleeding from his elbows and on his chin where he grazed the pavement. He is very tall, whip thin and long limbed and he looks down at her and dazzles her again with his smile.

"Apologies, Miss." he straightens his cap that has miraculously stayed atop of his head. She decides she wishes to see his hair.

"No...no..it is no trouble. Are you hurt?" she says.

He looks down at her with an almost amused expression, perhaps he is unused to such a clipped and decisive accent, or he knows her to be new to the neighborhood. She flushes with embarrassment.

"You seem to be bleeding, I am sure my wife can remedy that." Hans has followed and is standing closely behind her.

The boy looks at the husband that stands behind the wife and his smile sobers.

"Sir." he touches his cap and nods, waiting to follow the couple into their home. She grabs the boy gently by the bicep and it flexes impressvely under her gentle touch. She begins to lead him up the walk way and around the hedge to the house steps and she hears Hans wordlessly move the bicycle off the street to rest it against the hedge. The boy removes his cap when he enters the home and he holds it to his chest. She takes it from him with a murmered word and her fingers brush his. She catches a closer glimpse at his flat, round nails and the hint of dirt underneath them. She looks at her own hands and catches a gasp but no soil has transferred to his cap. She leads him into the kitchen and points for him to sit down. He does so and politely maintains his gaze to her as she speaks to him over the running of the kitchen tap.

"I am surprised that automobile did not stop for you." she lathers the brick soap over her hands and scrubs them rigorously.

"No harm, no foul, Miss." he chuckles and when she looks at him and smiles she believes that she sees his chiseled cocoa cheeks flush.

Hans enters through the swinging door and when she peers at the boy under her lashes she sees that he has directed his gaze to his lap, his fingers interlaced tightly.

"Your mother delivered fresh bread to me when I first took residence here. When I went over to thank her, she was there with two little girls." he says.

The boy looks up from his lap and nods eagerly. "Yes sir, my sisters Marie-Claire and Bess." he replies. Hans nods and they discuss other menial, neighborly topics as she cleans the boys elbows and bandages them with linen and surgical tape. When she gently grasps his chin to clean his scrape, he shows her his eyelids for he keeps his iris's carefully lowered and Hans is silent as she admires his ebony skin close up, devoid of visible veins or lines.

When she finishes the boy thanks her, nods his head to Hans and is quick to not impose on them any further. He is out the door and going down the walkway and both she and Hans watch him from the open foyer when she realizes that his gray freckled cap still hangs on the coat stand. She grabs it and quickly dashes down the sets of stairs. She rounds the corner and sees him adjusting his bicycle chain.

"Wait! Your cap!" she calls. He looks up at her, startled and then grins with appreciation. He nods again.

"Thank you kindly, Miss." he takes it and again their fingers brush and she is quick to stuff hers in the pockets of her slacks. He places the cap over his head, covering his shortly cropped and very curly dark hair and he regards her for a moment. He turns away with another smile and he is swinging his leg over the seat.

"I'm sorry, I never asked your name." she speaks suddenly.

He turns. "Dashiell. Dashiell Jones." he smiles again.

She pauses and she plays with the name over her tongue. It nearly sounds like 'Daniel', only..not Daniel.

"Greta La-...Greta." she repeats again, nodding affirmatively with the last.

"Well then, thank you kindly Miss Greta." he turns and pedals away from her, down the street and out of her sight.

She walks back inside and has a sudden wave of tiredness. She and Hans sit down to a lunch of sandwiches and cold milk and there is little conversation. They garden again in the afternoon and after a couple of hours she stops both of them and they walk inside. He goes to wash his hands in the lavatory and she chooses the en suite to do the same for she has had enough close proximity with her husband. She dries her hands and when she turns back to the bedroom her eyes immediately befall the bed with its sturdy iron frame. She listens for Hans, hears nothing and makes her decision. Just a quick resting of her eyes, just a moment to feel the cool goose down pillow against her constantly hot cheeks.

When she wakes, she does so with a start. She looks at the hand held clock on the lamp table and realizes she has slept for three hours. She quickly rights herself and walks into the kitchen and she finds herself alone. She calls for Hans but hears nothing, not a creak of cherry floorboard nor a cooing, well oiled voice. She begins to gather the supplies she needs to make the stew she has been thinking about for the last couple days. She chops, dices and spices but only when she realizes that there are no potatoes in the kitchen does she feel another lurch in the deepest part of her gut, at the lower half of her spine. She eyes the cellar door and stupidly, she calls for Hans. She has heard no door open and the house is still except for that damn clock mounted on the wall behind her.

She opens the cellar door, feels in her palm how elastic it is. It is not a sturdy door but a hurried add on. With the tip of her loafer she holds the door steady and then removes her foot and watches as it falls back into her hand slowly, but surely. Just as she thought, the door is too thin to not be affected by drafts of air in the house. She can see a sack of russet potatoes at the foot of the shallow staircase and she growls in frustration and because she is brave and not afraid of the dark, she dashes down the stairs for it. But the sack is heavier then she thought and the bottom of it rips when she tries to lift it and golden auburn potatoes spill and tumble all around her. She hears the door creaking, she feels the space around her darken and she pivots in her spot.

She dashes up the stairs and the door is closing and she hasn't the key on her person, and the light is disappearing and with a gust of wind it slams shut. She falls to her knees on the last stair and she hears her vocal protests of no particular language and she feels for the door handle and when she grasps it her heart leaps into her throat and she turns and jiggles and turns again but it is locked and she lets out a howl of pure fear.

It is pitch black, she cannot see her own outstretched hand in front of her and she holds onto the door handle for dear life. After her howl has died she is silent, listening to her panting breath as she remains on her knees, her shins scraping against the cement stairs but she is too stiff with terror to move. No, she does not believe in ghouls or ghosts, spirits or poltergeists. She believes in the whispers, the sound of her fathers belt against her brother's cheek, the smashing of cognac bottles against her bedroom door. The same bedroom with the pink organza bedding that Hans entered in 1935, only then she still had her rocking horse and ballerina en pointe spinning night lamp.

Quiet, you will wake the girl. Leave her be, let her sleep. Please, Karl. Please.

She just wanted to dream, she would pull her covers over her head and wish herself an angel with wings.

No! I said no! She has to see! No daughter of mine will live an innocent while her house is defiled, while she disobeys the wishes of her Lord! Of her Father!

She didn't know it was wrong, that it would displease her Papa. She was following her brother, she wanted nothing more then to be exactly like her brother, to jump rope and play the piano forte as well as he could. She rolled from under her sheets and shimmied her flat chest against the floor boards, pulling herself under her bed. And she would close her eyes and shiver and cry for her mother.

She thinks she feels a tug on her ankle now as she crouches on the stairs, just as he did when he pulled her from underneath her bed and she would leave a track of warm urine in her wake and she howls in desperation now, nearly twenty-four years later. She bangs on the door so hard she is bruising where her palm curves into her wrist and she is choking and coughing on her sobs, on her shrieks. She feels hands crawling at her, tugging at her collar, his voice puffing and whispering at the back of her neck and she wails long and high. Her face is hot and blurry with tears and saliva drips from her slack, trembling mouth and nose. Her knees slip and she pitches forward and grabs the stair railing and she sags against it. She is defeated and her cries are hollow, low keening sounds.

The door is wrenched open and there is a splash of light. She looks up and sees the eyes of Karl Guelke, blazing blue and bloodshot, his fist bleeding and clutched around the broken bottle of cognac and she screams in terror. She smells his alcohol spiked sweat and she knows that he is close and her hand shelters her face against the light, trembling, shielding. Hands (not her own, a mans) are reaching for her and she shrieks and chokes but she is being lifted bodily from the stairs and out into the kitchen.

The kitchen. This isn't the kitchen of her family house. No, the kitchen was painted a forest green with shining wood. This kitchen is a matted beige with red shelving and white cabinets, white floors, wood chairs and table. She is standing upright, feet dragging, and the hands gripping on either side of her waist are not her Papa's, and the biceps that she is clutching terribly tight to steady herself are not her Papa's either. She squints and lets out a muffled sob. She catches Hans' eyes for a second only (brows knitted together and mouth agape) before she turns her gaze down to her feet and whispers.

"I'm sorry...I-I'm sorry...p-please...please." she chokes. She is begging him, but for what she is begging for neither of them know.

"Greta...Greta...Greta.." he repeats her name, slowly, and his voice surprisingly carries no condescending note, there is uncertainty in it's place. He is tugging her closer to his body and she is stiff and resisting and her voice is crawling higher in pitch with her protest but he forces her with a grunt for she is stronger in her erratic distress. His hand holds the back of her head in place, his cheek bent to hers and his elbow is tightly over her shoulder and his opposite forearm is easing the length of her torso against his. She cries out in disagreeance but the moment her (relatively unchanged) breasts make contact with his soft chest, her body becomes boneless and she sags against him with a broken sigh. Her breath hitches in jolting hiccups with every third breath. Her arms wrap loosely around his waist like a circle of yarn, but as he murmurers in her ear ("Shh, Greta. Shh, my darling.") her grip tightens and she imagines herself to be a great anaconda, although he does not choke and sputter like a man under the deadly serpent surely would.

She will not release him and he does not try to disentangle her. He crouches down and slips an arm under her knees. Her arms wind around his neck tightly and he does not protest as he carries her slowly out of the kitchen and into the strategical master bedroom. When he sets her on the bed, she will not release him at first. He stays leaning over her, sitting beside her on the bed and his hands gently press at her wrists.

"Greta, it's alright. Shhh, come now. You're alright." he says softly.

"Please...please..." she repeats, panting slightly..still hiccuping. Hans presses on her wrists again and he opens his mouth to speak again but she silences him by leaning up and kissing him soundly. She gasps and shudders and her arms tighten and she is pulling him to her firmly, his chest easing flat against her breasts.

"Greta..perhaps.." he says, but she intertwines her tongue with his own.

"Please...please.." and she whispers so desperately, and her voice is still catching in her throat just so, and her calves wind around his back and she is pulling her starched button up over her head. Hans does not make another gentlemanly protest. She looks him straight in the eyes and his are calmed and glittering (always glittering) but his mouth is a grim line. She tugs his oxford from his slacks and he assists her in removing it and he tosses it behind him. She has stripped his belt from him quicker then he anticipated for he emits a surprised hum when she jostles his waist in flinging it through the slack loops and onto the floor. She is quicker then she can remember ever being, her fingers are deft and it mostly her movements that divests both of them of their remaining slacks and undergarments.

She is running high on an adrenaline rush, everything she has exerted in that godforsaken cellar has propelled her into overdrive. She feels one level above humanity. But soon, very soon she will fall from her high place into exhaustion and yet she seeks comfort, she seeks reassurance. She is too fragile to do as she did the night before, to kiss violently and to pull and scratch. Hans knows, of course. He comes to her, knees pushing against the mattress to hover above. She is leaning up on her elbows and she slides her hand around the nape of his neck, drawing him closer. He says her name as his lips fall to hers.

His hands skim along her rib cage and he presses his lips to his wifes in slow, short, chaste kisses. He is not grabbing nor is he insistent. She grabs his palm and flattens it firmly to her bare breast. He rolls his palm against her, circling her, his fingertips pressing into her (rapidly) beating heart. His lips press one last caress to hers before his chin is flat between her breasts, his breath puffing hot between her ribs. His hands come to the indentations on either side of her waist and he presses hard as if he is trying to fold her in half and she groans in discomfort and looks down at him and he is watching her, his eyes hooded. He is wondering how breakable she is, how bendable and pliable. He does not break their stare as his tongue delves and swirls into her navel. Her lips part and she is breathing shallowly.

When his eyes lower, she knows why and her head lays back against the cool pillow and she moans shakily as his chin drags along the inside of her thigh. He raises her knee with one firm push, hooks it gently over his shoulder and she is pointing her toes and rising by her navel and her fingers are gripping his hair. She is panting and her eyes sqeeze tightly shut and he holds her hips tight and flat and she is too exhausted, to absorbed in her pleasure to fight him. He hums against her flesh and she is begging again but this time they both know what for. When he finally heeds her tugging and whispering, her knees fall flat against the mattress and she is pure liquid as his chest hair tickles her breasts and he fills her.

She aches. She wants. She needs. She is teetering on the edge of pleasure and insanity. She shudders and moans tiredly and he kisses her in a hushing manner. He has been gentle thus far and he rocks slightly against her but his kisses intensify and wrestle a deeper moan from her chest. His hand comes around the base of her throat and his thumb strokes the vulnerable hollow and her eyes alight as she looks at him and his mouth quirks because he intended for her reaction, he wants her to be present during their love making or whatever it is they are doing. He is not so gentle any more and her calves come around his waist, her heels pressing into his buttocks. He is humming softly and she turns her face into the curve of his neck and inhales his scent.

They are wordless and without much sound but she is fluttering around him and her hips move in an unspoken rythm against his own. He is scraping his teeth on the inside of her neck and along her jaw and his hips slide longer and harder but still she makes next to no sound. She is breathing shallowly and steadily, lingering on a single plane of aching pleasure. Her belly is tight and clenching furiously and she hides behind the darkness of her eyelids. He folds her knee high beside her ribs and presses on her opposite hip and this time when his hips slide against hers again, her breath catches in her throat and she arches her back, her nipples sliding against his skin. He is passionate but steady and her teeth chatter as she gasps his name, swearing it over and over as if he were a deity all his own.

Afterwards, they watch each other in silence. He is propped up on his elbow, his hair still disheveled and he strokes the tip of his finger down the path of her freckled nose, the outline of her bitten lips. She searches his face, waiting for him to ask her now when she is more likely to answer him. She silently pleads with him to not ambush her in the days to come.

He concedes.

"Why did you go in to the cellar?"

"I needed potatoes, for the stew."

"Wait for me next time. I will go down there for you."

"Thank-you."

She pauses. She contemplates inquiring of his whereabouts when she was pounding her wrist into rubber on that cellar door but she swallows the urge. Perhaps, he was tucked away in the American house all along.

They sleep for a few hours and he wakes her by pressing open mouthed kisses to each of her vertibrae. When he is still resting between her sore thighs, he speaks again.

"I am not Karl Guelke, Greta." his voice is tender, his eyes intent.

"I know." she says, and it comes out more breezily then she thought it would.

He presses his lips to hers and she closes her eyes and sleeps.

That night, she dreams of Dashiell Jones, the boy with the cocoa skin. She is sitting on the front of his bicycle and he is pedaling steadily and their path flows underneath them straight and sure.

I am not Karl Guelke, Greta. He laughs over the sound of rushing wind and flashes her his blinding smile.

I know. She says. I know.


	6. Predictions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gift, a library, a boy, a reckoning.

The next morning she wakes to the sound of distant voices. She blinks slowly, her limbs heavy and the sheets cool over her skin. She expects the room to be painted in the cool grey light of the island chill but instead there is golden rays spilling across the sheets, across her bare skin. She sits up with a start, conscious of a door clicking shut and she is only just wrapping her nude, thin body in the satin dressing gown when Hans enters the bedroom carrying a large box. He sets it down on the unmade bed and he turns without a word and retreats back to the hallway. He repeats this motion twice, thrice and finally a fourth and there are as many boxes on the modest bed, all plain brown in color and covered in tapes and postage notes and stamps.

Greta raises her eyebrows for an explanation, her throat is too dry to speak and despite his rather cheerful expression, she finds herself feeling rather awkward around her husband, for obvious reasons.

"Though I have promised you a day in town, I also have a further surprise for you." He taps the boxes with reverence and her eyes fixate on his fingers, smooth nailed and just the perfect width and length. The back of her neck is hot.

"Please do not tell me you have imported new clothes for me, Hans, or else I will be inclined to fear all of those boxes contain evening wear." She clears her throat mid-sentence but her responsive sarcasm has predictable effect: a revealing of the teeth grin and (she wishes revealing of intent) shinning eyes.

"Imported? Yes. New, they are not." He produces a pair of scissors from his pocket, the small silver kitchen set and he begins to cut the tape off of the boxes. She leans against the bed post, crossing her arms under her tender breasts and she watches as he gently removes the lids and sets them aside. There is tissue paper and he reaches for it but pauses. He nods to her and steps back, clasping his hands behind his back. She expects him to look irritatingly pleased but his face is entirely blank and in this she hesitates.

"Greta." He intones slowly, as if she is a child.

"What is it?" her voice betrays her impatience. His lips purse delicately and his eyes remain solid as stone.

She juts her chin. "The man that blindly reaches-

"-is the man whom is blind, for Christ's sake, Greta. " He reaches forward and tosses the tissue off the box nearest him without careful aplomb or delicacy and he reaches inside. There is a slither of fabric and he holds out a navy frock with a gold butterfly belt, the chain still fitted through the flat belt panels at the waist. She wore this very frock the day the war ended.

"My…clothes." She says quickly. Her brows furrow and she looks at him with accusation as he removes and carefully sets on the bed a riding jacket, three blazers and matching skirts and satin blouses commence the first box. The second has many of similar frocks she has only worn when she lived with him, most in navy, ruby red, forest green or the odd white. She was never for a bright color palette, not with her black Bavarian coloring. The third has (thank god) her work trousers, shirts, cardigans and jumpers. Hans is heavy handed with them, shooting her a look of disapproval. She interrupts, asking how these have arrived from Berlin, from the house she thought to be ransacked but he ignores her. There are a few sets of pumps, oxfords and simple flat shoes at the bottom of the box and he sets those on the floor. Once he has removed the tissue lining on the fourth box, his eyes flicker to hers and she narrows hers in return. She doesn't have a moment to demand he hurry along because before them and in his hands is an ivory jacquette and sheath dress studded with Elizabeth pearls. His fingers handle the sheath as if it were air and he drapes it across the bed with a seamstress's delicacy.

"This..was in Vienna, not Berlin." She ghosts her hand over the cashmere fabric. Her voice is thick.

She wore this the morning after their wedding night in Berlin. They tour Austria, and stay in his family home and in their shared bedroom bureau is where she left this upon his request. The way he looks at her when she descends the opulent staircase to the front foyer, the car waiting on them for the train to Vienna, it is as if no man has ever laid eyes on her before. Her hair is left down, it is only to her shoulders then and curled higher and she wears a slim and stylish white hat, without décor besides a ribbon detail at the base.

She predicts that Hans will look at her the way he does in that moment on the day of their wedding, when he sees her in the lavish crystalized wedding gown and when he lifts a veil from her face. But he doesn't, he chooses to make her knees wobble and her breath catch short the morning after she has first slept with him. She hasn't slept much, she has stared at the canopy above her bed, in her childhood home in which they have married. He is gentle and tender and quiet as he makes love to her, nearly three years later to the date of their first private conversation in the very same room. But as he sleeps soundly beside her, his hand resting over the curve of her flat belly (a belly that remains even more concave eight years later), she worries. She worries that she has said too much with the movements of her body, that she has revealed that she knows some (most) of what a man and woman do in bed. A spark of anger ignites in her belly, still warm from the feeling of his own pressed flush to hers; he knows of her lovers, he knows she accepted gifts from them and is no virgin for she has told him these exact words the evening he asked for her hand and still he did not retract his proposal. It was a final effort to deter his persistent (electric) attentions and he did not bite, he did not as much as blink. He laughed and he kissed her and he slipped the gold band onto her fourth finger of her left hand in November of '38.

He is speaking to her now and she looks up in surprise to feel his shoulder graze hers for he has come around the bed to stand next to her. His hand is on her back, the other covering hers, both of their fingers hovering.

"It was the only item of sentiment in that house, I hope it will bring some comfort." He speaks quietly.

"Comfort to me, or to you?" her answer is quick, sharp, and suspicious. Oh, how she wishes to see his eyes flood with the loss of his younger, impressionable and soft spoken wife. The simplicity of lovers that do not yet have a life built together, that have not yet seen each other's darkness, inabilities and failures or even worse yet they have not seen how well the other can hide themselves. Marriage: the greatest masquerade.

His hand slides through her hair and his thumb grazes her bottom lip and she lowers her eyes, not from the gesture but from the intensity she sees growing in his, storming them. She relishes his mourning as retribution for all he has slighted her, but she fears how his bitterness may burn her if he so chooses.

"Remembrance, for always I have you with me." He kisses her, and it is the last time he will do so for nearly two weeks. Her eyes are shut as she listens to his footsteps retreat and they remain so for moments afterwards. When she opens them she is still in the American house and not in Berlin, or Vienna or Paris and she chastises herself for daring to dream otherwise.

He offers to take her into town that day but she complains of a headache for she has unpacked all of her boxes and placed them quickly into the closet, except for the sheathe and jacquette, she handles those with great care. Hans assesses her curiously, he feels her forehead with the back of his hand and he orders her to bed. He brings her tea with chamomile and fresh mint and she does not berate his gesture, she allows herself to be flattered by it.

She closes her eyes but she does not sleep. She thinks, of everything possible to think about. She slides deeper into her own melancholia that she knows will pass once night falls and she awakens again in the morning. No, not pass, but it will be buried again. All of her predictions (disappointments) of the past will again burrow deep within her belly, her spine, too far from reach until the next time she is reminded of them. That cellar, that dress, they have both stripped her bare and she hides under the covers of the bed with the iron frame.

She feels movement, the familiar bends and dips of her husband moving behind her and she opens her eyes. She adjusts to the darkness, relieved to be finally rid of the grey island light that presses on her temples. His hand comes to her hip, his fingers tickling along her belly and she lets out a long breath. She feels his cheek against her hair and she doesn't dream.

She wakes before him, well before him in fact. It has barely become grey again and she takes her time in bathing and dressing. She braids her hair back, tucking it away and she wears a white blouse tucked into a navy skirt. Underneath she wears proper undergarments, garter belt and all and she is not surprised but still uneasy with how much she has to tighten it. She snorts at the thought of pumps and she wears simple flat slip on shoes. Her skirt is slipping from around her waist to her hips and she uses a thin black belt from one of her coats to hold the fabric in its proper place.

"Darcy will come to clean today." His voice startles her and she puts down the coffee pot harder then she intended to against the stove top.

She has to swallow a few times before she can find her voice. Of course Darcy cleans for him, and now for them.

"Can we leave her here while we go to town? I need..smaller clothes." She looks at him.

"I will take you to a doctor." He accepts the coffee cup in her extended, smaller hand.

"A doctor, I do not need a doctor. I am feeling perfectly well."

"You still seem malcontent, Greta."

"Every day I am with you, I will always be malcontent Hans."

A pause,

"To town, then,"

"Yes, to town."

In the women's shop she is measured by a deft handed older woman. She speaks in grunts and pushes until Greta hears her say the words 'too small', but not in English.

"The war." Is what Greta says, in reflexive German, and for the remainder of their hour long appointment, all they seem to do is speak to one another. Her name is Elsa, her husband is Henrick and they have four children and six grandchildren, all of which live in Maine with her oldest daughter and second oldest son. Her youngest is a nurse in Canada where she lives with her husband, they are newly wedded and Elsa is hoping they will have children soon. She and Henrick left Germany after the first war. Their families did not follow.

"Your husband is Hans Landa, the Colonel?" Elsa is pinning on Greta a day dress, working quickly at her hips.

"Yes." She says quietly.

"No children?" Elsa does not flutter around the questions she desires to be answered.

"No."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-nine."

"You have plenty of time, plenty. I had my Rita at thirty-four." She pats Greta's cheek with a maternal swipe of the hand and Greta can feel her throat swell.

"Yes." She says.

Elsa nods. "I heard you would be arriving soon, Henrick and I have been the only German's. Plenty of Swedes, Polacks, Italians and Blacks but no Germans, only us."

"What else have you heard?" she says without accusation.

Elsa pauses, her weathered hand lingering at the younger woman's waist.

"Nothing worth repeating, dear." She says, reassuringly enough.

Hans is waiting for her in the foyer of the lobby, speaking to a young girl. He has his head bent towards her and there is a smile playing at both of their mouths. She is younger, blond and curvier and Greta pays neither of them any mind for she marches past, putting on her gloves and she doesn't care to see if Hans is following. He does follow, he catches her elbow and steers her around.

"Well?" he scans her flustered face.

"She has to alter all of the clothes; I will pick them up in two days' time. Where is the library?"

He gestures behind her, down the street. She nods and turns but not before he tucks her hand into his arm. It is not lost on her that almost every man and woman they pass on the street nods their way, sing out passages of greeting and praise. What he has done here, this nest he has built for himself it sickens her, sickens her that she still remains here. But most of all, her weakness sickens her, the fragility she allowed him to see and then to comfort and build anew. She should never have allowed him that, and now she is as hostile as she was the day she first arrived on his doorstep of his damn American house, revived with a vigor that makes her fingers shake in his arm.

She walks up the marble steps and immediately separates from him. It is not a difficult task, he is already immersed in an Italian conversation with an older gentleman and after she is introduced and has her cheeks kissed wetly she is off to find the reception desk. The woman sitting there wearing chain spectacles on the end of her nose looks up at her as she approaches-

"Mrs. Landa, I presume." She is an American.

Greta stops short. "Yes."

The American woman nods briskly and stands from her chair. "I just came off of the telephone with Elsa, she said that you were interested in work. You are still interested?" she looks down at her long nose and Greta has to look up at her for she is quite tall.

"I wouldn't have come otherwise."

"Excellent. Have you worked in a library before?"

"No."

"No? What about office work or administrative duties, a secretary, perhaps?"

"I'm sorry, no."

The woman (she later learns her name to be Anne Templeton) pauses.

"What do you do then, Mrs. Landa?"

"I have a certified university degree in Botany and Greco-Roman studies from the University of Berlin, the former of which I wrote a dissertation paper for Oxford University. I speak German, English, French and I studied Russian and Latin in intermediate and finishing school. I played the cello for the university orchestra and I finished all of my grade levels with excellency. I worked as a translator in a government job for a period before I married." She takes a deep breath and feels her cheeks flush.

"How long did you have to repeat that little speech of yours?" her tone is wry.

"Until I was given away to marry and from then on my accomplishments were null and void." Her answer is quick.

The American woman raises her eyebrows and then, just barely, but it is there: Greta sees a smile and a flash of light in her eyes.

"It happens to the best of us, any children to speak of?"

"No." she speaks firmly, perhaps sharply but she has already been consoled for her lack of offspring once today.

She is given another smile, this time more visible.

"Good. It is hard to find a hard working woman without children to rear in this town."

"My husband can also rear himself." She says. Or Darcy can, whichever.

There is a laugh bubbling in the older woman's throat but she does not let it submerge into open air. Still, Greta cannot help but smile softly.

"Tomorrow afternoon, come here and report to Marie-Claire." She hands her a piece of paper.

"That is the wage, it is the best we do here and no one complains of it." Greta only nods and she folds the paper and places it in her pocket. She thanks the older woman and turns with a smile still on her face.

"Oh, and Mrs. Landa." She calls.

Greta turns.

"Lipstick won't hurt you."

She flushes and nods her head, her lips moving in a barely audible agreement.

She sees Hans waiting at the bottom of the marble stairs, his hands in his pocket and he is checking his pocket watch. He looks up when he sees her shadow as she descends the stairs to meet him. He looks her up and down when she is standing next to him.

"You come to a library and leave without a book?"

"I didn't come for a book, I came for a job." She smiles and takes his arm to pull him along.

He doesn't move his body and she swings around to look at him with mock surprise.

"Come darling, I am starved." She preens.

"Greta, Doing what may I ask, if that is not too much to ask."

"Yes, Hans. I will do whatever work they desire and get paid for it, which is what a job entails."

He is angry and she can see it and they are in public but no one is around them and her spine is tight and her belly is warm but she cannot wipe the smug expression from her face.

He steps closer to her. "How is it that you need a job, Greta? Let me remind you that we are perfectly comfortable-"

She steps closer to him and her voice is lowered and ripe with venom and betrayal and scorn.

"No, you are comfortable. I am biding my time, and I will not tend to your home while I wait for you to grow tired of me again. I have never depended on you financially, not ever and not now. The war has made you a hero alright, but it has wrung my assets barren." She speaks the last three words with hard pokes to his chest with her slight index finger and she steps back and bows her head as a couple pass them down the stairs and murmur their hello's and goodbye's to Hans.

"My wife, the book keeper." His voice is silk and he is offering his arm to her. His jaw is tight.

She looks up at him and her face is absolutely calmed, sublimely serene.

"My husband, the Jew hunter." Is her quick of wit but slow tongued response and this time he does not grin and he certainly doesn't laugh, he looks away from her entirely.

She knows that he is biding his time, he is allowing her to ride on her higher moral compass, floating above him for days, weeks, months, she doesn't know. But hopefully sooner, rather than later, if she plays her cards correctly, like Zeus of Olympus he will strike her down in the most debilitating of ways and he will (hopefully) hate himself for it, and then and only then will he allow her to be free of him. This will be how she will survive him, by presenting herself for the kill.

But in her quest for release, and as the weeks pass and she fills her days in that library she does not predict that Marie-Claire will be Marie-Claire Jones, the mother of Dashiell Jones. She does not predict that she will form such a quick and gentle friendship with the younger man, he delivering and taking orders for books and she seeing to the return and stocking of inventory. The library is quiet most days and it allows for quiet socializing to commence amongst book keeping duties. She does not predict to find such enjoyment from their conversations, to find herself skipping into the building every day that she sees his bike parked against the stone rails. He is curious about the war, about Germany, but his eyes are wide when she tells him what he wants to know and he is always apologizing, saying he is impudent and has asked too much from her, especially when she has to dash her fingers over her eyes when he asks her about Dooms Day. But she pats his shoulder, she tells him not to worry, that she will not tell his mother he was asking after such subjects that are forbidden in the Jones' house hold.

They stay late that evening to help sort in a new shipping of atlas's, and has left Greta the keys to open with the next day. Dashiell has insisted that she leave him to do the work, it is well past seven o'clock.

"I told you I would help you and help you I will, Dashiell." Greta sighs, brisking him lightly with the atlas in her hand.

Dashiell smiles, his teeth are pearly white rounds against the pigment of his beautiful, butter-like skin.

"I know my mother, she went home to cook for my father is all. Won't your husband be worried, Ma'am?"

"Do you mean will he be worried or what will he do for supper? And what did I say about addressing me as 'ma'am?" she rests her hands on her hips and she raises her brow and she watches as he flushes with embarrassment which seems nearly impossible given his color, but she see's it, two darker spots on the highest point of his cheeks.

He shuffles around her, her head doesn't even reach the highest point of his chest. His fingers brush her waist to steady her and they are so long, thin and tapered that the touch is ghostly in sensation and the base of her spine is tingling warm.

"That you are not old enough, ma-...Greta." he chuckles and they both laugh and they shelve the new atlas's for at least an hour. She declines to take the bus with him, simply because she does not wish to embarrass him. She has heard that they sit 'coloreds' at the back end of the bus and she knows she will refuse to follow such a requirement, some people she has spoken to seem to believe that skin color is as contagious as a fever.

She see's his understanding pass through his honey eyes and he lowers them, bidding her goodnight. She steps forward then, her gloved hand coming to his forearm and he goes as still as a great willow tree for he is surely nearly as tall.

"Tomorrow then, I will bring the keys." she squeezes his forearm and he graces her again with his dazzling smile.

"Yes, Miss Greta. Goodnight to you, Miss Greta." he flicks his cap. She waves her hand and turns and starts down the opposite end of the street. He no longer calls her 'ma'am' and so she will not strive to break him of 'miss'.

When she arrives to the American house well past dark, her nose and cheeks cold with the brisk evening air, Hans is not pacing the street nor is he even sitting on the wrap around porch. He is already in bed and she sneaks in like a thief cloaked in shadow. He says nothing to her in the morning and because she is feeling revived, impertinent she makes sure to kiss him properly before she leaves for the day.

Another week passes, and then another. On the weekends she gardens and she allows Hans to help her, they go to town for dinner one evening because he has set up plans with his Italian acquaintance and his wife and she attends without objection. She curls her hair and wears an emerald green gown from one of her boxes, cut low on the shoulders and down the back. Her lips are red and her lashes are dark and the diamond broach in the shape of a swallow rests over her heart, a gift from him on their second anniversary. The man, Garetzi and his wife, Guillana are pleasant company enough and Hans is charming and she is politely soft but she knows in the way that he guides her along the street to the cab, with his hand tight around her hip and the white wine fizzing in her belly that he is unnerved. He recognizes her, the Greta of 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938 and he is disturbed, but most clearly aroused for the door of the American house has not fully closed behind them and he is pressing her roughly against the door frame and his hand is under her gown, sliding along her garter belt and his fingers are cold from the island chill when he slips them into her satin panties and she yelps and bites his chin and the rest of their evening and early morning is no gentler.

Afterwards, there is no melancholia, there is no shame from her for this time she has a haven to retreat to, the house only stings her with it's saltiness. She goes to the library early in the morning and she returns late at night and still, Hans does not question her and still her (dalliance?) friendship with Dashiell Jones continues.

However, she certainly did not predict that one day, in the next week that she is in the library (a Tuesday) that Dashiell would kiss her. Somehow, between giving him his last order of the day to deliver on his bike did he discover that tomorrow is her thirtieth birthday. He inquired after any gifts she was hoping for (not necessarily), or a birthday party (definitely not, she is not a party sort of woman). And then, with his hands resting on the handles of his bike does he wish her a happy birthday and he bends down, his face extending and extending and extending until he reaches her own and with his cheek (soft as she imagined) slides against hers, she predicts him to whisper in her ear but his lips (plump and smooth) caress her cheek and then he is standing straight and towering once more. He does not stutter or falter, he looks at her with those honey eyes, his cocoa skin shining off the dim lights and he bids her good night. And she practically skips past the bus and she walks all the way to the American house that night and once again it is well after dark. She is so distracted, her fingers still touching her cheek that it takes her until she is almost at the hedging of the house that she sees Hans is heading straight towards her. His pace is rapid, and he is coming from past the house and she realizes he has been pacing the street, like she predicted (hoped) he would nearly four weeks ago. His face is stone and he speaks not a word, his bruising grip on her soft flesh above her elbow is enough. She barely has time to protest, so quickly he is practically dragging her up the walk way and she trips on the stone steps but he does not stop, he does not even slow.

She knows that a simple surprise kiss will not placate him this evening. He turns behind her to slam and lock the door and the sudden spinning movement is awkward for her and she stumbles against his body and before she knows it he is pushing her away from him, enough that she is forced to pace back more then twice. When he steps into the light of the hallway, she feels stones in her belly. He is cold, and he is livid and his eyes burn into hers with the flame of thunderbolts (Zeus) and she is afraid. Her eyes are wide and her cheeks hallowed and dense and she knows that her surprise is evident.

"You will tell me." he speaks slowly, carefully, his voice drips with enunciated blades.

"Tell you what, Hans?" she swallows thickly and he is unnerving her with his slow, predatory advance.

He is silent and he has ceased his minute advance and immediately her spine releases it's tension. A mistake.

He has her against the wall and his hand is wrapped around her throat and he is squeezing, not as hard as he could but still the pressure blocks some of her air and her eyes are wide.

"I understand that you want my attentions, my jealousy and rage, Greta."

She is whimpering softly and she is pushing at his chest, pounding with her fists.

"But tonight, your guilt is a toxic waste, a brand of seared, adulterating flesh."

She hates that she can feel tears straying from her eyes and down her face, ending at his fingers but she is genuinely afraid and her knees are numb and she is coughing violently.

He releases her and she sags to the floor and her heart is beating wildly like she has run for miles. And then she is up and she is pushing past him and she is pawing her way into the bedroom and she cannot even understand the shrill voice that is escaping her between gasps for air, her lungs are shuddering. She is screaming at him and he has followed her, she tells him to go to all seven hells and how to get there and she is emptying drawers and tossing clothes blindly on the floor and the moment he seems to be coming closer to her (she see's his eyes are alarmed and he is holding his hands out, he seems to be apologizing) she tosses a wooden drawer, aiming straight for his head and he dodges it. Before he can come closer to her she tosses another, and another. She is screaming still in German, her voice is cracking and she swears that she has remained a faithful (though he is undeserving) wife and he has left her with nothing but bitterness in her soul, in her heart. She hates him, she is ruined and how dare he handle her so poorly (he has never raised his hand towards her) especially when he knows of her bastard father. But she is tiring and there are no more drawers and he takes his chance to quickly snatch her up and crush her to him and she screams, long and hard into his chest and she pounds at his back but still, admirably so, he does not let go.

I hate you, I hate you. I am nothing without you. I hate you (her).

I'm sorry, please forgive me, I'm sorry (him).

That damn boy, that damn boy with his cocoa skin.


	7. Springtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A darkness, a doctor, a life, a promise.

"Just, stay away."

"Greta."

"Leave me be."

He is silent as he shuffles behind her, his fingers are playing at the bed linens, the wide digits are gesturing against the coverlet. It has been three days, three days since that. Three days since Dashiell Jones has kissed her, since Hans has wrapped his fingers around Greta's slender, pale throat. Three weeks since she has destroyed (he mended) the strategical master bedroom.

He pauses. But he speaks again; he carefully considers his method of approach.

"Please, Greta. Just let me see. Greta?" he is reaching out, his warm hand is grazing her shoulder. She trembles, her resolve is wavering. She wants him to see them, to tend to his markings that leaves her sore and even more bereft then before. What was meant to fill her with revenged laced pride has left her concave and wide in the pit of her belly. It has left her dark. She imagines that if she covers her pale (beautiful, she has been told) face with the darkness that is her hair, longer then he has ever seen, that the color will stay, stain her skin and deep into the tissue of her muscle until she is truely, purely, untouchable. She lets him tug at her shoulder, gently pry her to lay on her back. Her eyes flash upwards, squinting even though the curtains are drawn and the moment she catches his gaze (shocked, so shocked) with hers, she snaps. Her right hand swings without proper aim, but still connects against his shoulder.

"Get out!" she screams, her voice is shrill and livid, and it breaks and she is coughing and he is stumbling back, his eyes so wide that he looks nearly comical. Her throat wrenches and she kicks her feet against the bed, her toes raising the coverlet. She is intending to kick him but doesn't even come close. He is holding his hands out, like he did that night, like he is trying to soothe a startled mare, but she is a venomous cobra snake.

"Greta!" His body is cautious but his voice is impatient, the nerve of him.

"I said, get out. Now." her voice is hoarse, guttural. She doesn't speak again, she is balancing her weight on her spine which curves inwards, preparing to strike forward, to claw and bite and hiss and poison. Her head is raised, so she can see him better and the position is straining on her tender neck. She is staring him down, her eyes watering at the pain of raising her head. Finally, she drops her heavy skull to the cold pillow and she pants quietly, her fingers are curling into the mattress and her heart is beating wildly. Her body is spiking, she is clutching the bed in a panic.

"Hans...Hans!" she means to yell but it comes as a whisper. When did she last eat? She can't remember. He is beside the bed with the sturdy iron bed before she thinks of calling him again. He has never left the room, has watched her cling to the bed in her sudden wave of dizzy illness. He places his hand on her knee-cap. Wordlessly, he is asking for her direction.

"I'm going...to be sick." she staggers over her words and leans up with a grunt on her tongue. Hans slips his hands under his wife's knobby knees and across her slender back and his forearm slides along the sweat slicked starch nightgown. She hisses at him as her fingers circle around his neck for grip but it comes out as an exhausted, pathetic wheeze. She remembers, distantly, how he holds back her raven (veil) hair when she is sick in the toilet, how he flushes it down and steadies her as she continues to be sick twice more. She remembers the cold, biting air as he removes her stained, starched nightgown, tosses it in a crumpled mess in the corner. He sits her on the edge of the bath tub and his arm is wrapped around her torso as he leans past her and runs the taps, her elbows are digging into her knees as she huddles forward for warmth. She remembers her cheek resting against the cloth of his shoulder, her mouth dry and her breath rasping in laboured syllables.

When he eases her into the hot water, she cries out unexpectedly, tries to thrash and he swears and catches her by the shoulders before she slips under the water in her sliding movements. The porcelain is gleaming and her body is magnified and starkly pale to his eyes, shimmering against its glimmer. He does not pull against her shoulders to sit her up again (the cloth from his clavicle to breast bone is soaked through, hair fallen out of place), instead he leans her back, balances her so she does not sink under. For a long while she is simply staring up at the ceiling and he is watching her, the water moves and shifts noisily with her every breath. She draws her knees up, the caps immediately feeling the cold air and she takes a deep breath.

The movement propels him into action for he is reaching for the sponge and lathering soap and she watches as he extends her wrist and starts there. Scrubbing, squeezing, lathering some more, his brow is furrowed in his concentration. He spends minutes just cleaning under her fingernails alone and her hand spasms with the tickle and when she can't quite stand the pulsing of his fingers on the underside of her hand much longer she takes it away, soaks it in the water and watches as a murky cloud of itching flesh wiped clean follows in its wake. Her belly is tight, pulsating, waiting for him to reach for her again but he doesn't. His hands clutch the edge of the tub, his knuckles are white and the gold band on the fourth finger of his left hand shines against the porcelain, reflects and contorts glamorously on the water. She angles her head, distracted by his declaration of marriage to her and the movement causes a jolt of pain that has her toes flexing, her instep slipping. She squeezes her eyes shut, but only for a moment, and she sees his when she blinks open.

"The medicine cabinet, the brown bottle with the twist cap, and some cotton swabs, or something." her voice is surprisingly clear, the steam from the hot water has done her some good. He acquires her request with an ease and precision unique to him and him alone. She had hoped he would give her more than a scant few seconds to collect herself. Her fingers tighten against the tub and she pushes herself up without a sound and she allows herself a small niche of pride. She is getting better; she will get better, despite her overwhelming instinct to fade. She has been dealt her cards, as some would say; she has experienced her life events in the only way she has been taught to do so, but; something, unbeknownst to her, fought to remain. Surely, it was not her own self-interest; she knew she was not capable of seeing a future for herself that did not involve Hans in some way. She had intended to divorce him, she had not expected for him to allow her. Perhaps, she does not intend for that either. She stares at him and nods to the brown bottle in his hands.

"Put it on my neck, carefully. Hold the cotton there for moments at a time to let it sink in. I am already bruised yellow?" she has not taken a look at herself. She watches as he swallows, his eyes scanning her neck.

"Yes." he whispers.

"Yes, you understand what to do, or, yes, my neck is yellow?" she want's to hear him say it, want's to punish him in this small, minute way.

The breath he draws before speaking is not steady and sure. "Yes. Your neck is yellow. Yes. I understand what to do with the medicine." he says. His voice is steady, his chest falls unevenly. Her eyes fall on the scar on his forehead, marring whitish lines, more visible in the harsh bathroom light. She continues to examine the mark as he dabs at her throat. He speaks again.

"There is yellow, but there is purple, blue and green." he murmurs.

Her lips part and she is breathing shallowly.

"In the shape of your fingers?" she queries.

"Yes, Greta." he doesn't sound shamed, he sounds exhausted, as if she were a petulant child (baby) and her eyes narrow.

"How long, do you think, until it fades?"

The cotton scrapes loudly in her ear, the reverberating near painful. He hums in thought.

"Three weeks, perhaps. I am no judge."

He dips the bottle to the cotton, dabs her neck again.

"Not a judge. A detective, though. Surely, you have seen bruises."

Scrape. Dab. Hold. Dip. Scrape. Dab. Hold. Dip. Scrape.

"I have seen bruises, but none that would have the time to heal."

Dab. Hold. Dip. Scrape. Dab. Hold.

"Because, those with the bruises, they were dead? Or going to die? You would have known."

Dip. Hold. Release.

He looks her in the eye as he sets the bottle to the floor. His fingers reach out and brush away the damp hair that clings to her forehead.

"Both. Usually, those that know they are to die, are already so, emotionally speaking, before their physical life has come to an end. It is a defensive mechanism, the human minds way of preparing itself for the trauma that is the unknown. Men and women are capable of just about anything and everything, once we are threatened."

It should disturb her or at least strike her as bizarre, this candid conversation, all things considered. Even now, as the man tends the wounds of the woman, inflicted by his own accord, they both are calm and resonate. They blend with the island home, are seamless and practiced in their manner of incitement and discourse as if they were in any other, more likable situation, it is as if they were gardening, sharing a meal or even making love. If she has learned anything in the last (nearly) ten years, it is that they are hardly a conventional man and wife. Greta breathes more easily in the knowledge that if they have not kept their vows, they have kept consistency.

He takes her silence to change the focus of the (unconventional) discussion at hand.

"You need to see a physician." he reaches across her for the shampoo, moves so that he kneels behind her now (the tiles must hurt his knees; good).

"I am not well enough to travel to town, I will look a sight."

"Wear something to cover your neck, then."

"You don't understand. This nausea has had me sick for days; I won't be seen losing my supper in the street. Bring a doctor here if you're so concerned."

"They don't do that in America. We must go to town once you are better."

"If I am better, I won't need to see a doctor."

"You're going, Greta."

She opens her mouth to respond, but doesn't as his hands lather the soap to her hair. The gentle tugging at the base of her neck, his fingers massaging her scalp evenly, the sensations silence her. The water is just cooling when he rinses her hair, gently touches the ends with oil that he warms between his hands, so that her hair will remain smooth and untangled. He thinks of everything, he wraps her in two white towels and lifts her out of the tub. He bends to carry her again but she shakes her head and steps out of his reach without stumbling.

"No. I can manage." She doesn't sway on her own two feet, but her knees are weak as jelly. But, she does force herself to manage, to walk to the bedroom and lean against the frame. She does allow him to dry her hair, to direct her to sit on the edge of the mattress and cold linens that are in need of a change. He dresses her in what she asks for, casual day slacks, wool socks, loafers and a cardigan, a button blouse underneath. She shakes her head at the satin brassiere he holds out, pointing to a cotton one with little fuss or adornment. He slides the cotton underwear up and over her hips, his fingers warm at her navel. For a brief, startling moment, she wishes his hands to stay at her hips, where his fingers graze the fleshy part of her bottom, running along the seams of the underwear, for the heat at her navel to come from his tongue and not his fingers and she feels her cheeks grow red. She is not herself, if she was, desire for her husband would be the farthest thing from her mind.

Hans is right; she must see a doctor at once. She assists in dressing herself the rest of the way, shirking his help, but he takes over when her fingers tremble over her blouse and he tucks it tightly to her body, buttoning her fitted slacks over them. His is smoothing her collar over her cardigan (an understated navy) when her belly growls.

"Tea." She says. He raises his eyebrows.

"I'm fine. I'd like some tea." She affirms.

He nods and leaves her to herself, alone. She makes it to the vanity and braids her hair, her fingers jerk along the way but it looks decent enough. She tucks the end back into the braid, pinning a decent French roll and she looks at her face, at her neck. The base of her throat, with its skin adornment of discoloration is indeed covered by her high collar. Still, she tugs her blouse higher, wincing. She remembers many a morning or evening, sitting in front of a vanity like this one, primping herself in some way as Hans watched from behind her, sitting on the bed or leaning with his hand in his pocket, or lighting a cigarette or reading.

He would asses her with a near critical eye, focused on her fingers as they blended her lipstick, dipping into the same pot of rouge to melt evenly along her cheeks (just the barest bit, too much rouge was for Parisian hookers). On evening occasions, she would brush coal along her lash line, lengthen the ends with the thick black liquid and then brush it through. She used powder with the lightest of hand, she never layered it over her freckles, wasn't a point in doing so. The colored powders for eyelids, she did not favor, she disliked being unrecognizable. She touches her face, now, what seems like twice as many years later and pulls at the skin around her eyes and does not recognize the young German bride at all.

Greta drinks the tea (Darjeeling) that Hans makes her, she drinks the entire pot and he, water. When it is clear that her stomach can handle more, he makes her a sandwich with tomato, lettuce, chicken and butter. He toasts the bread as she likes, she eats the entire thing in measured bites. Afterwards, she eats strawberries and she stands and cuts herself cheese to nibble on as well. His eyebrows are raised, her appetite has not been so substantial since she arrived on the island.

"Be careful. You haven't eaten solids in three days."

"I'm fine. I feel well. Better."

"The Doctor-"

"We will go today. If you have nothing else planned. The linens on the bed must be changed."

"The house keeper will come this afternoon."

"We do not need one. I can do it."

"But we can afford one; we could afford two if we wanted. Besides, one day, we will need one."

She scoffs and laughs and the movement strains her (yellow, blue, purple, black) throat.

"When we are old, you mean? You will be the first to die; you are older than me by fifteen years. What do you have to worry about?"

"I've nothing to worry about, which is my point. The house keeper can tend this house, and you can tend to me." He chuckles softly.

"I can?" her voice is wary.

"Who else would there be?" his face gazes upon hers with expectancy; she sees no trace of smugness, just honesty.

Her chest tightens. It is just them. Still, always. Without the other, they are singular, alone, abandoned.

They take a taxi car to town that same afternoon, she insists that they don't put it off, not when she is feeling 'just fine, thank-you.' She ties a cashmere scarf around her neck and hair, just to be safe, she keeps her eyes on the ground as they walk, hoping to avoid the probing town. The secretary is not perturbed that Mrs. Landa is without a proper appointment, the only two people in the office are them, the Germans. Not many Americans are sick, apparently. She doesn't look back at him when the nurse steps forward to collect her and she knows he will not insist on following.

Her eyes hold the trim carpeting and focus on the young woman's white stockings. She tells her (Irene) of her symptoms, of her sometime void and sometimes ravenous appetite, of her vomiting, of the unbearable nausea, of her headaches and melancholy. Iren looks up from the clip board, steps a few paces to the side and closes the door for privacy. She asks when she has had her last cycle, if you please, Mrs. Landa. Greta pauses, her lips part and she seems confused and apologizes for being flustered.

"When you last bled, when was that, Mrs. Landa?" her eyes (green, her hair: scarlet) are wide with encouragement.

"After the war, I stopped bleeding for a while, when I stopped being able to eat. I haven't bled since." She says slowly.

The nurse is nodding. "That can do it. Being underweight and poor nutrition doesn't improve your chances of conceiving, but, you may have just been lucky." She flashes an opportunistic grin.

"Excuse me?" Greta flushes.

"The doctor will be with you shortly. In the meantime, undress behind the curtain and put on the gown. Leave on your brassiere and stockings if you wish, but the underwear must go. He will need to examine you properly." She is out the door with a flashing smile and soft click before Greta can protest.

The remainder of the appointment follows in a strange fog. The doctor (Swanson), comes in with a jolly 'hello there'. He has her put her feet on the curved wood of the patients bed and adjust her hips to lay flat. He turns on a great light and wears magnifying glasses. She gasps when she feels his gloved, cold fingers ply her apart, when he leans forward and presses his opposite hand over her belly and presses down, hard. She closes her eyes and winces and he is humming appreciatively.

"Yes, yes very good, very good. Small, very small, but most women consider that fortunate, to have as little time as possible in the discomfort that can be expansion. You have noticed a weight gain?"

She shakes her head slowly. "I don't know, well, maybe. I can't tell."

"Well, it hasn't been noticeable that is for sure." He smiles then. "Lucky girl, but you are growing undoubtedly well. Sometimes, they are farther back in the womb then others, for a young lady of your stature this is unsurprising. Delicacy, even when carrying, is hard to come by." He chuckles and he is lighting a cigarette in front of her. He has tossed his gloves in the waste basket.

"Forgive me, you may sit up now." He eyes her.

She snaps her legs closed and leans up, pulling the gown further down her hips, drawing up her knees.

"I am alright, then?" She whispers. Her lips are numb, she has no idea why she is so lucky, was she gravely ill?

"Oh yes. You're very much alright, nothing to be concerned about at all. I should expect, oh, late spring."

"Late spring for what?" she blinks slowly.

The doctor reaches forward and pats her knee and she swallows down a flinch.

"Until, you deliver a healthy baby boy or girl, Mrs. Landa! Congratulations to you and your husband, good day." He has closed the door behind him.

She can hardly move. She opens her mouth, closes it again. Open and close, open and close again. She exhales and releases a sound, a question without speaking. How? It's impossible. After all of this time, of all times for this, now is when she is, she is? She slides off the patient's bed, her feet connect to the tiles and she is grounded for a moment. She dresses with sudden vigour, eager to escape from this building, wanting nothing more but to rest again. She walks quickly out of the office, Hans following behind her, his hand steadying her back and she is silent all the way back to the house. He pays the taxi driver and she drags herself woodenly up the steps, her belly heavy with apprehension.

She feels a jolt at the base of her spine and she gasps, and she is touching, pressing against the area between her crotch and her navel and she feels nothing at first, but then something, then hardness, a firm presence. A life, a human being grows steadily within her; a combined image of him and her, or perhaps mostly him with shades of her or dominantly her with hints of him. What color hair, what color eyes, what shade of skin, freckles like hers? She is silent the remainder of the day, barely nodding at appropriate times when Hans speaks to her over dinner. But when he mentions Ann Templeton, she thinks of Dashiell Jones and her attention is his.

"Ann Templeton sent a note for you. I sent word that you were unwell, she hopes you are able to return to the library when you are in better health. She sounds quite fond of you." He looks at her, swallowing another spoonful of soup.

She stares at him, her heart is beating so wildly, her fingers are trembling around her own spoon and she sets it down. She has to, she has to tell him, she needs him to know, if he hasn't hazarded an assumption already.

"What exactly is it that you do there? Besides sorting books, how many other duties does she have you attending-"he is continuing with remote curiosity.

"I'm pregnant." She interrupts, and though she means to look him in the face, she immediately lowers her eyes and wrings her fingers tightly in her lap. Her chest is clenching uncontrollably, her heart beat is thrumming in her ears and her face is hot. He is silent, and she hears no movement of cutlery, no breathing, absolute stillness across from her. He doesn't beg her to repeat it, exclaim in disbelief , he does nothing; he has heard her clearly. She can't bare it, she can't stand to look at him, she is afraid (terrified) of what she will see there. She hears her voice hitching when she speaks and she doesn't bother wiping away the tears that sting at her eyelids.

"He told me, the doctor, he told me I should, that we should, have a baby by the end of springtime. That's five months from now. "

"Greta-" he intones calmly, softly.

"I didn't know! I stopped, the bleeding it all stopped after three months of rations, when my clothes didn't fit, I stopped and I thought that it was over, that it wouldn't come back, women stop all the time, my mother stopped when she was no more than forty, she told me that was common for the women of our family and then when I arrived here, I still didn't, and I thought it was done for good-"

"Greta-" He is standing from his chair, the sound scrapes the tile and she bolts out of hers, pacing suddenly around the opposite end of the tile, away from him.

"This isn't right, for you and I. After all this time, there has been nothing like this, I thought it was because we didn't want it, because we didn't deserve it and I accepted that, I knew that you and I could never have a family aside from ourselves and you grew bored with me! You have made me hate you, made me rue the day I became yours, curse that you were mine and every woman of Paris laughed at me, all of your whores who laughed and scorned me, who fucked you and no doubt rid of your bastards at the nearest apothecaries in a back alley." She speaks quickly, but without hysteria.

"Greta, sit down. You'll excite yourself." He is walking closer, extending his hand. She shrugs him away.

"No. Now, as it would have it, as our fate would have us, I am carrying a child, conceived in my planned revenge on you. I wanted to leave you, to wash my hands clean of you, but still I allowed myself to be comforted, to believe this American fantasy, I freely offered myself to you once again, as if I haven't learned my lessons that you destroy everything, destroy me. And for whatever reason, by whatever science, I am having your child, a boy or a girl, in springtime. "She raises her arms in defeat, lets them flop uselessly at her sides. She sighs, closes her eyes and presses her hands to her face.

"It should be a sin, that you and I, should be blessed with a child." Her voice hitches with emotion and she is silent again.

He barks with laughter and she peers at him with accusation between her spread fingers and his arms are crossed over his chest.

"Then I am glad we are neither religious zealots, nor puritans."

She frowns, her face is flushed and her fists ball at her sides. "Don't you have anything useful to say about this?"

"You haven't given me a moments chance to speak." His eyes glitter (beautifully) annoyingly.

"Well. Then, speak. I'm waiting." She juts her chin like the Queen of Sheba, with swollen eyes and a blotchy complexion.

He regards her for a moment, his brow furrowing here and relaxing there, his eyes scanning her body.

"I want to see." His voice is so low, so deep in his chest that her nipples tighten almost immediately (shamefully). She can't recall feeling so suddenly, and inexplicably, aroused.

"What? See what?" Her voice is a pathetic, small whimper.

His eyes slide up to her face and he is stepping towards her, extending his hand and grabbing her wrist not unkindly and he is leading her out of the kitchen. Her feet shuffle to a standstill as he directs her into the strategical master bedroom and she watches in confusion (anticipation) as he draws the curtains, shutting out the grey light so that it is a distant, colored over blur. He turns back, shuts the door, furthering the lack of light and then he, surprisingly, clicks on the bedside lamp and the room is gently bathed in a more golden ambiance. When he begins to remove his clothing, not just his oxford shirt or tan day slacks but every garment on his no longer young, but definitely not old body, she is speechless. She is too surprised (excited) to protest, and most definitely too interested to look away.

She admires him, even though he keeps his eyes trained on her face for the majority of his undressing. His arms are strong, strong enough to always carry her; they are toned still in even measures of muscle. Even as her eyes reacquaint themselves with the light smatters of hair across his chest, the trail splitting his still flat belly, to his well-shaped hip bones and strong thighs, she focuses on his hands. She has always admired his hands, the elegance of them despite their brute thickness, the lack of feminine space between each finger, they are wide and softened and very capable. Her eyes flicker up to his face, unsurprised to find him looking straight at her. She watches his body move as it steps towards her, seeing his skin shine in the light, admiring him for his unabashed nudity. He discards her of her cardigan, is unbuttoning her blouse and pulling it from her slacks and she hesitates, places her fingertips to his wrists.

"What are you-" She is protesting, her voice soft.

"Shush." He presses his lips to hers and she doesn't speak again. What begins as a chaste kiss, once, twice, four times, soon involves a much slower caress of the lips, a full contact of his mouth engulfing hers, his tongue flicking against her teeth and across her own tongue, passing over her own sensory flesh again and again. She feels short of air and she gasps when he pulls away to slide her slacks and her underwear to her ankles in one, quick movement. Her fingers balance on his shoulders, the air prickles at her bare breasts (when had he divested her of the cotton brassiere?) and he lifts each foot out of the garments one at a time. His hands slide up her hips, cup between her legs to feel her warmth and she exhales sharply.

He turns his cheek, perfectly there, right under her navel, to the hardness and he pauses, as if he is listening for movement that they both know will come soon, but not now in this moment. His fingers probe along where his cheek rests against, nestling beside his mouth as he lays a kiss there. She feels herself swaying, her breath quickening and he slides his forearm up to rest between her breasts, his fingers lying flat against the bruises of her neck, and his other arm is wrapped around her hips and bum to steady her. She is panting and he kisses her lower, below her navel, mapping along her swelling belly, his tongue divvying further, at the beginnings of her folds. Her hands clench in his hair and she is moaning shakily, keening already as he does so again and her hips jut. Suddenly, she is afraid of how warm she is, how senseless she feels, how unaware and lost against his body and she thrusts her hips back, but all there is to meet is the bed and he doesn't ease away, he follows her as she falls back onto the mattress, onto the cool (now clean) linens.

He is spreading her legs by her knees, lowering his shoulders between them and she skitters back, away. She is pulsating and she catches his face in her hands. "No." She whispers. He pulls away, scrapes his teeth along the inside of her thigh. She arches her back. "No." She whispers, again. She is closing her legs around him, preventing him from doing as he wants to do and he slides up, slithers up her body and his chest is flat against her bare breasts. He pins her arms above her head and he kisses her passionately and vaguely, she can taste her desire. She thrusts her hips against his, demanding.

"Lay on your back." She pleads. He looks at her with a small smile, but as he does as she requests, his slightly smug grin disappears when she bends her head and bites and tongues his nipples. His hands fist in her hair and he is hissing and emitting little surprised moans. She is hungry enough to want to devour his entire body and her thighs are shaking as she scrapes her teeth along his chest, slides her cheek against his collar bones and nips at his neck, kisses him with an open mouth. She is so prickly warm, so selfishly aroused with a boneless feeling in her body that all she can do is writhe against him, blindly pawing at him. He groans, says her name and takes pity on her as he leans his back to sit up against the iron bed frame, pulls her closer to him, her knees on either side of his lightly haired thighs. He grabs her hips, steadies her for a moment and then pulls her down as he moves upwards and she throws her head back and cries out with relief.

She slams her hands against the bed frame and it rocks slightly as her hands slip for grip, otherwise, she knows she will sag against him in a useless heap of pleasure. His hands are around her hips, and then around her back, tugging at her loose (when?) hair and her throat is exposed to him (black, purple, green) and when his lips clamp over her breasts, his teeth hooking to her tight nipples like a fish to a line, all she can focus on is raising and lowering herself above him, over him, on him. The initial shock of him inside of her has faded and she rubs herself against him, breathing unevenly as he continues to lavish upon her breasts. She tucks at his hair, bites his chin, rubs her cheek to his and his fingers knead her bum.

He halts his movement of his hips against hers for the barest of moments, comes to his knees without leaving her and lays her on her back and he follows, resting on top of her and he hums languidly, his hips flexing against hers, raising and falling. She is arching her back in frustration, the pleasure is undeniable, as by the keening note her unashamed moans suggest but he is holding back, and she knows why. He is only shallowly, easily, rocking against her, his thumbs flicker and pinch her nipples and she cries out, watches as reverently, he caresses her belly.

"Harder." She breathes.

"Hush." It is a moaned command.

"Hans!" she gasps.

He kisses her, silencing her but she is not to be deterred, she is burning far too bright. With a few pushes, a roll of her hips and grunt of demand, he is again on his back, flush to the mattress and she leans her back against his slightly raised knees, clutches one hand at his thigh, the other is scratching along the hair of his chest and she is steady, and hard. His reaction to her force, to her so selflessly taking him as she wants is satisfyingly compliant. His hands rest on her hips, he isn't pulling her against him as roughly as she is but he isn't forcing her to slow. He swears quickly, quietly, breathlessly and his eyes shut tightly for a moment, the tendons of his (unmarred, peaches and crème, lightly freckled) neck strain, his brow stern and jaw slack as if he were in pain.

The sight of him, so clearly helpless underneath her and relinquishing to her wants has her moaning and panting breathlessly. His hands tighten on her hips and all hesitation is gone when he thrusts as deeply as she desires, when his thighs slide between hers without restraint. She clenches, raises above him and she cries out in a pleasure so sharp and warm that her fingers dig into his chest, twist around the fine hair. When she pitches forward, still managing to arch and thrust herself against him like an oiled dart of raven haired silk, ignoring the protests of her tiring body, she scratches her fingernails down his chest, catching his right nipple and she hears his inhalation of pain directly before the low, groaning hum of his orgasm being wrung from him, by her. She collapses against him, and he puffs out a groan, their hearts hammering against each other. She is still folded up against him, her knees on either side of him and her chest folded against his but she doesn't care about the discomfort, she is still too warm and prickly and she is panting softly and her lips soothe the nipple that she scratched, soothes the hot skin where she has drawn blood.

They rest, and then they make love some more. He spends an entire half hour with his face between her legs, her fingers tugging non-too-gently at his hair, and when he tells her that she tastes differently, more like an over-ripened strawberry then the usual musk of femininity, she swears she does not believe him but his expression is unflinchingly severe. He is, undoubtedly, pre-occupied with touching her belly. When she allows him to, more gently this time ("We must be careful, Greta") make love to her for the second time that night, it isn't lost on her the way he passes his hand under her navel, tickles his fingers against the skin there, or how he is careful not to rest his weight heavily on her even when another orgasm has them both biting at each other's mouths and necks. They rest for a while, but the later hours has the sheets stripped off of both of them, his cheek resting on her rib cage, his hair tickling the underside of her left breast as she weaves her fingers deftly through the strands. She feels his eyelashes slide against her skin every time he blinks his eyes and his hands are ghosting over her sides, her right breast and under her navel, hovering there. She hums softly.

"You still haven't said anything."

He shifts and exhales, his warm breath sending goose bumps over her arms, her navel tightens.

"About the baby, you haven't said." She continues cautiously.

He looks up at her, his chin coming to rest in the small indent between her breasts. He changes the position, angling more on his side, drawing his body away from her as he holds his head up to gaze at her evenly by his palm, the other hand never leaves her belly, it soothes over her. She is not sure what to do with her own hands, so she just lets them lay prone at her sides for a moment as he regards her. She feels as though she has failed some sort of test, or perhaps does not understand him at all and she reaches her fingers out, smoothing back the hair of his forehead, scratches her fingertips through his scalp lightly with the same fingers that caused the four lined, equally spaced scratch mark that is slightly scabbed along his right side.

"You are having my child, this springtime." He says slowly, as if she is first to hear of the event.

"That is what I told you, that is not your opinion, Hans." She rolls her eyes.

"What is there to have an opinion about? It is fact. In five months, give or take, we shall have a son, or a daughter."

She is silent, her eyes scanning his face like a ticking clock.

"You want me to tell you if I am pleased, or if I am not pleased." He states. He is still caressing her, but his tone holds coldness, an accusatory faction that shames her for wanting to ask him.

"I'd just assumed you would, you always tell me at every other opportunity, why should this be any different?"

"Because, Greta. This is our new life. This-", his hand rests firmly on the hardness that is their child, nourishing from her own body, "-is our future." His tone is severe, promising and assuring and he presses his mouth to hers. She takes a deep breath.

"We can't be the same. We can't be like we are, not anymore, not with a child."

"I told you. This is our future. This is another life, another time." He assures her. She closes her eyes tightly and she is silent as he settles beside her, draws the covers around them and holds her tightly. Everything that had occurred since her arrival to the cold island, to the American gifted house was echoes and direct occurrences of their past, and then, something worse than their past as proven by the still soreness of her throat. But his breath was evening, more slow and deep and she feels his grip growing looser but not loose enough to have her slip away from him and she swallows down her further hesitations, her deep anxiety that grows within her like their baby, their creation of unborn life.

She relaxes a little, forces herself to breath in tandem with him. She will have to wait.

She will have to wait until Springtime.


	8. The Lull

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter a while ago - and I mean a while ago. But, I wanted to add it here on AO3 so that it coincides with where this story is posted on FF. I still intend to one day finish this story (seriously), so, for those still reading, I hope you enjoy. This story is in no way beta'd and all errors are my own.

*******

Greta is twelve when she wakes in the middle of the night and feels sticky between her legs and a horrible pain in her belly and she can't reach the lamp and she's gasping in pain and her brother is twisting in his bed and telling her to 'quit making so much noise, already.' Greta can only cry into her pillow and pull her knees to her chest and only then does her brother turn on the light and she will always remember the nearly comical noise he makes (part surprise, part alarm) as he demands what is wrong with her, his voice cracking and sounding afraid and unsure. And his flat feet slap loudly along the floors and the door creaks open and before she knows it her mother is lifting her to sit up in bed and she is casting her a look that looks part pride, part grim acceptance and Greta can feel her brother standing not too far away and silently pleading for his sister to tell him just what exactly is going on because they tell each other all their secrets. They, together, have concocted a plan with soft whispers that one day they will live in their own house and Greta will be the Mutti and he will be the Poppi and no one will hit them or scream at them or belt them again.

But, her brother doesn't get an explanation. He get's their mother slapping the side of his head and he scampers from the room without a backwards glance, hand upon flaming ear and Greta gets a bath drawn for her and her mother muttering as she strips the bed linens and she returns with flannels and tells Greta to 'scrub it all away or else you'll be dirty' and Greta shakes at that, at being 'dirty'. But despite the first puffs of pink mist, the water remains clear and maybe it's all stopped now but when she stands from the bath she realizes this simply isn't true and by God will it ever stop? Yes, it will stop for a while and then it will happen again until you reach a certain age and don't ask so many stupid questions and will you stop your crying for crying is what little girls do and women certainly don't cry and this is what being a woman means and still Greta cries and says she doesn't want to be a woman. And despite the fact that Greta has known from her very beginning that her mother has a hard heart and her mother has no sympathy for whining or 'girlish nonsense (Greta's mother favours her brother and always will), she can still remember her Mother's pinched and worn face softening and her mouth and brow smoothing into an expression that, at the time, Greta doesn't recognize.

This is what we're given, you and I. We never had a choice, she says. There's no point in crying, Greta. No point. And that is the last thing that her Mother says on the issue. By the next evening, Greta's Mother and the house maid have moved Greta into the upstairs bedroom and Greta doesn't dare ask why she isn't allowed to share a bedroom with her brother anymore because it's clearly because she now has the dirty problem happening to her and has to soak the coarse cloths every couple of hours and there is just so much of the dirty problem everywhere and she can hardly walk and Mother says it wont stop until she is old. Her brother stands in the doorway of the upstairs bedroom but won't cross the threshold, not after the warning look Mother gives him. After the bed is freshly dressed the maid gives Greta a hot compress to hold over her belly when she lies down. When Greta's Mother isn't looking she slips her a sweetie from her pocket and quickly soothes her forehead with her cool palm. Don't worry, she whispers. Greta closes her eyes. I'm not worried, she whispers. There's no point in worrying.

Greta is fourteen when she realizes that men in particular have begun to look at her differently. She begins to wonder if all men have always seemed like they are looking for something when they see her. They no longer look through her but over her, around her, inside her, like she has stolen something of theirs or, worst of all, like she is something hidden that they have just found. They're careful not to look too long and mindful of their wives and their children at the church social and at the school gates but still, she can feel them searching, accusing, glowering, making her afraid and yet her belly is tight and the nape of her neck is hot and prickly and Greta feels so much shame she makes herself sick with it. Why do they look at me? She says to her nurse maid when she is putting her to bed (she sleeps with Greta in her room every night and it is to watch over her but Greta asks who is going to watch over her brother now and for once their nurse maid has no answer to give) and the nurse maid smiles shyly and looks at Greta the way Greta likes.

She looks at Greta like she is a hidden treasure. She looks at Greta like Greta is loved. Because, the boys like how pretty you are. You should smile at them but not too much, just enough for them to think you're pretty, she says. Greta pulls a face. She isn't talking about the boys on the other side of the school gate or the boys at her brother's rowing tournaments along the canal. She's talking about the men. Herr Sheydwasser and Herr Von Hadden at the church social and even her father's estate lawyer Herr Goeren and her tutor, Herr Viegler (though he is young and handsome and fair with sharp cheekbones and treats her kindly but he still makes her nervous and warm) they all look at her. Greta knows she must be so shameful because of the dirty problem and because even the priest Fuhrer Schaeffer, didn't he stare into her eyes when he spoke of Magdalene and the temptations of the female form leading good men away from the path of light. The nursemaid pauses at the way Greta is biting her lip and looking afraid and she soothes her forehead with her cool palm like she always does and tells her not to pay any of them any mind.

There is nothing wrong with a pretty girl. I am here to watch over you. There is nothing that can harm you. Helga The Nursemaid, her nursemaid, always promises her these things. But, what will happen when you can't be with me anymore? Greta says. Helga sighs and squeezes her hand. You won't need me for much longer. You'll have a husband and children before you know it. She smiles and it is meant to be comforting but Greta certainly doesn't feel comforted, she feels herself frown and the beginnings of a slow simmering glower. A husband? Children? That isn't what I want. I don't need them. Helga flinches only slightly. But, surely you want love. We all want love and family. Greta turns onto her side and closes her eyes tightly, ignoring the way her throat closes when Helga presses one warm palm to the center of her back. It doesn't matter, Greta says. There's no point. Not to any of it.

Greta is fifteen when her parents send her away to an all girls finishing school in England. Surprisingly, nuns do not run this school nor does it appear specifically religious but Sister Agnes writes to the Headmistress with the suggestion that she view Greta's reports. This school boasts an international student body with young ladies from all over Europe. Greta is quite honestly shocked and confused as to why she has been considered, and later accepted. When she questions Sister Agnes and reminds her that she is hardly as clever as other girls, Sister looks at Greta with a grim determination. Many of your peers are clever, that is true. But, they are distracted with frivolity. You are focused on learning all that you can when you are under my care. I have seen you watching the other girls from your desk but not with the look of want. You do not want to be like the other girls. You want to be free of here. Greta cannot argue this. She wants to be free, yes, but she didn't think it would happen this way. She didn't want another person to secure her freedom; she wanted to do it alone.

The night before Greta is to set sail for England, Helga lies beside Greta in her bed and places her hand on her back and Great is so overwhelmed by everything about Helga that she begins to sob, not cry. Crying would mean she would have to make noise and Greta makes next to no sound, only gasps of breath in between. She shakes so hard that she can feel every follicle of hair in her body being jostled and disturbed, every beat of her pounding heart being deprived of oxygen as she opens her mouth and lets all air escape her. She wants to scream and whine and she tries to but the misery is so sharp and clear to her that all she can do is suffocate. She is powerless in the face of this grief, the grief of being separated from Helga, from her true Mutti.

Her bones creak as she shifts closer to Helga on the mattress and Helga holds her tightly, so tightly that her collar bone is grinding against Greta's cheek but the discomfort is but a whisper of pain already lost in the distance. She is overwhelmed by Helga's smell (cinnamon and sunlight and lavender parfume), by her love, by the feel of her fingers that are tapered and fine when she plaits Greta's hair, by the sound of Helga's voice when she sings softly to her, by the way her rose coloured cheeks flush when Greta comments on how fair and pretty she is (her Helga isn't old, not like other girls' nurse maids) and the crinkly lines around her eyes, the webs that flash when Helga gives Greta her special smile that only Greta can see.

Greta sobs herself into a restful sleep and when she wakes through the night, Helga is there for her. She appears to be neither tired nor upset in the least (even though this is Helga, Greta is always wary of scolding), always smiling softly even in the dim lamplight and softly humming Greta back to sleep. It is close to dawn when Greta turns to her again and finds Helga still lying beside her and wiping at damp eyes. Greta's breath is too loud and her voice is raspy. Where will you go? She hadn't thought to ask before even though her brother had told her that their parents saw no more need for Greta. Helga smiles and it is a smile of fond sadness. My sister is on a farm in Düsseldorf. She has two little ones and another in her belly. She will be grateful for my help, don't worry about me. I will always write to you. She presses a kiss to Greta's forehead and her lips are warm and damp.

The next morning, Greta leaves for the all girls finishing school in England and Helga leaves the household never to return. Greta will not return to Germany for another four years and Helga will not see Greta until her wedding day. On the day that Greta marries Hans Landa, Helga cries and it is not with happiness and even though she knows she has no right, Greta is coldly indignant because she is afraid (is it right, has she done right?) and she and Helga argue because Helga can see everything no matter how much Greta hides. Years later, Helga is arrested for conspiracy against the Reich and Greta marks that day as the day she wishes she had never loved.

**1945**

They fall into a calm, into a lulled sense of reality. The news she has brought to him, brought to them, brought to this American island beginning to bloom with impending springtime has turned them both (momentarily) genteel. That next morning, after they (she) have argued, after they (he) have reassured each other of the simple fact that there is to be a massive alteration in their future, Greta sits at the modest breakfast table and watches with a surprised face as Hans absolutely, positively, fusses over her. The sleeves of the brown button up he wears are rolled to his elbows with neat precision, for Hans Landa does not appear disheveled unless the occasion is appropriate, for example, the previous evening and not six hours ago earlier in the morning.

He stands behind her, her hair (French braided, tucked away) is ticking the buttons of his shirt and he is reaching and buttering her toast for her with quick, measured strokes and she is overcome with the desire to rest her head, for a moment, on his chest. She is pleasantly tired, she thinks she may garden after they eat and then take an afternoon nap. Oblivious as she was to the second heartbeat inside of her womb beforehand, she is ever conscious of it not a day later of becoming aware of it. She swears she feels a pit in her belly, the feeling of a heavy hook, of a caged butterfly, of an innocent stillness, of life that is new, of spirit that is without taint. She swears that once Hans finally slept the night before, she had lain awake with one hand under her navel and the other over the beat of her own, developed heart and she could feel her blood, pumping rigorously through her veins, blood that she (and he) share with this faceless being, blood that forms it's essence and it's entirety.

They don't laugh. But, he's never really made her laugh, has he? She has laughed with bitterness, yes. She has laughed until she has cried regretful tears because of this man (and once, when she thought him dead by an explosion at a French cinema, she did cry for him). But, now, all of that seems to be forever fading in her mind and a brief (so, so brief) protest draws her minds attention. Is she truly becoming so brainwashed into this American paradise? Has she willed herself not to see what brought her here, to this island to begin with? She doesn't know and is more disconcerted to realize that she doesn't quite care to know.

But where were we? Ah, yes, the lull. The calm, for that is all Greta can describe it as (watch for the calm for there is a hurricane to follow it). Greta doesn't return to the library and that is on impulse and is a situation that has never and will never again be discussed. The boy, the colored boy, Dashiell, he was kind to her but Greta can't see him again. She feels ashamed that she led on his crush in order to inspire a reaction from her husband, which, did in fact do exactly that. Greta comes close to sending Dashiell a letter of apology and well-wishing but she takes one look at Hans, at the way his hands move easily through the earth where he rests on his knees beside her in the garden and she forgets the thought.

As she watches the veins in his hands shift with every pull and capable patting of the soil, she knows he won't hurt her again, not like that. But, still, it doesn't stop her from feeling uneasy and suddenly needing her distance from him at the memory. Hans says her name and she looks up with sharp concentration. He has noticed her staring at him, at his hands, her own paused over the soil but not moving and when his eyes might have been teasing and he looks far from happy. He looks concerned and perhaps even vaguely unnerved. She has learned that when she is trying to read him like he does her, it sets her up for a horrible dissection. His greatest power is his intellect and though it terrifies her, it is still what draws her to him like he is the air to her lungs.

"Let's go inside. You can rest and I will make you some tea." Hans has stood and dusted his hands before she has said a word and he bends to help her up and dusts her hands with her and walks close behind her as she climbs the steps and enters the house through the back porch. They wash their hands beside each other in the kitchen sink with the lavender soap that Greta made and she is careful not to let him catch her watching his hands a second time. Greta lies down on the bed and Hans brings her tea and closes the curtains to make the stark grey light less harsh on her eyes and the tea remains sitting on it's tray on the side table because instead, Greta reaches her hand out to him. He takes her hand in his and she gives a small but insistent tug all the same. He eases onto the bed beside her and comes to rest on his side facing towards her. Greta kisses him and slips her tongue along the seam of his lips and inside of the warmth and cinnamon and coffee and bitter (he's been smoking cigars in the evenings while he reads to her on the back deck) of his mouth and he makes those humming noises and his eyes are unfocused, that is when Greta likes him the best.

Sex for Greta has always been a tool. In her early days of experiencing sex, when it came to boys, Greta was sorely disappointed. All of this talk and all she had to show for it was some bleeding (Hail Mary, the Virgin Mother, the Virgin Queen, now that was a fearsome woman) but she still did enjoy the kissing. Kissing was nice. Kissing was when she and the girls she shared a Dormitory with at the posh finishing school would go to fairs and meet the boys from the neighboring school behind the sheds. Kissing was boyish grins and a hand on her breast and a few times up her dress and skimming her thigh and that had all been very nice too. Greta hadn't felt ashamed then, not as she was told she should. Greta was using sharing rouge and lipstick with Victoria Clements and reading ladies magazines about "The Art of Eye Kohl" and smoking cigarillo's and enjoying how her body had filled out but she never wore anything daring, the school uniform was precise but she and the other girls did like to day-dream of looking and dressing like screen sirens.

It wasn't until Hans Landa that she knew. She now knew what it felt like to feel every nerve ending of your body at once so acutely that you become light headed. She now knew how it felt when you're absolutely mindless with pleasure, willing to do anything for more of it, wanting to never stop even when your body is slick with sweat and trembling with the effort. And just when you think your body is exhausted, another kiss, a slight caress, a murmured word and you need more, more, more. If she was a virgin (the others were less than nothing, she can't even remember a detail about them) in a meadow than Hans was surely Zeus, terrorizing her and seducing her all at once and she was those girls in the classic paintings with their breasts exposed and their face in anguished ecstasy.

Greta was addicted to Hans as if his very essence, his very voice and physique were the purest of heroine, a swash of his tongue, a tilt of his head, each a waxy sphere of opium swallowed down smooth. It didn't take Greta long to realize that surely her new husband meant to pacify and control her with sex in order for her to be compartmentalized in his life. It took her even less to realize that Greta could make it just as difficult for him to resist her as it was for her to resist him. At the time, Greta rationalized it as her desperate attempts to try and keep him. But, Greta knows now that it was always about winning.

But, now, in 1945 on Nantucket Island, Greta is using sex as a tool for an entirely different purpose. She is using sex to hide and ignore her intuition but she does not yet know this. Now, as she kisses her husband and starts to tug at his belt and presses his palm to her breast and gives a start when he tugs at her nipple through her blouse (he is still unpredictable, always simmering with that thrill of foreboding and it is what reignites her lust for him, every time), Greta is under the simple influence of the fact that since she has visited the doctor, she constantly seeks intimacy and sex. Not just the act itself but she is constantly near him, she never wanders far (she still shudders when she thinks of when she wandered into the cellar). She needs his hands (the texture is like silk and sand paper all at once) when they're rough and when they're soft on her skin, in her hair, at the base of her throat and more often than before, at her hip, her spine, her shoulder, her wrist (the swell of her belly now softly evident) to guide her.

She needs him physically because she cannot allow him to hear what she is feeling (trepidation, fear, concern, love, heartache, joy for this baby, fear, trepidation, more fear, love, aching love) by her own words and in this she is a coward but when she wants to hide he lets her hide but not disappear and without him she would be lost within her own anxiety. Everything is faded, all of it, the past a distant life, another life (the women, the SS, her arrest, her brother, Helga, her parent's are long dead thank the Gods, she has never met his family and never will because none of it matters anymore) that she doesn't care to live, not anymore, not when she carries a new life without taint. Such purity, which is what Hans says to her afterwards, with his lips still working her breast as the sweat along her clavicle cools and his hands (why must his hands be so beautiful to her?) ghost over her belly.

"What is?" she whispers.

"This. You. The act of carrying a being that only knows its mother. You're nourishing our child from your very body, from your blood and bone. Creation is the purest thing that human beings have to offer. This is the purest thing that we have ever and will ever do." He speaks as if to himself, as if he has contemplated his thoughts for some time, his eyes remain where his hands rest.

Greta touches his cheek with soft fingertips. "I must have missed the 'we' aspect. I'm the one growing her, not you." Greta has already decided that she is carrying a baby girl and Hans surprises once again by not stubbornly insisting he will have a son, as every man should want. He told her with a level stare that he quite believed she was carrying a girl, as she said she was and of course, the bastard, he didn't appear to have any negative nor positive reaction to this assertion, just the statement of fact. Despite his calamity, despite all of his tactile efficiency and confidence in his intellect, Greta knows he is afraid, too. He will never give an opinion on something he isn't absolutely certain of and for everything else, for the frightening territory of uncertainty, Hans compartmentalizes. It didn't work with Greta, and she knows it won't work with their child but for now, she is content to let him deal with this event, as he knows how.

His lips quirk in a half smile, a smirk really. "Yes, but I still have the satisfaction of putting this baby in your belly, don't I?" he growls in her ear, his teeth nipping behind her jaw just hard enough for her to like it. Greta let's out a surprised laugh and Hans pulls back.

"What?"

"I never expected such a Neanderthal response!"

"I think I have made it clear that I enjoy the sight of my wife carrying my child." When he speaks low in her ear, a soft but deep purr, like a cello lined with velvet, she can barely form an answer.

"Y-yes. You just surprised me." But the subject is quickly dropped because he's purring his way down her body and running his teeth along the inside of her knee and higher up her thigh and she watches him through lowered eyes and knows that if he asked her to do a terrible thing right now, she would do it.

Weeks pass, and then another, and another after that. He wakes before her (always, he makes the coffee and toast and puts out fruit and reads his papers until she pads into the kitchen) and lately, because she dislikes the panic of waking alone (never before has it bothered her), she will slip into the kitchen still in her night gown and she will place his paper on the table and she will sit on his lap with her arms around his neck and her hair still sleep tumbled and skin smelling of linens and his scent (cinnamon, coffee, cigar, soft cologne of earthy musk tones) because she has gone too long without his hands on her. When she does this, they always end up back in bed and she gets a girlish joy from stripping him of clothes he's only been wearing for an hour at most.

On the days that she is not panicked, she will wash and smooth cream onto her face and body and dress and braid her hair back and join him in the kitchen. Most mornings, she likes to garden before the springtime sun becomes too hot in the sky and she is pale skinned and doesn't appreciate burns (though she wears a straw hat). Afterwards, they come in for lunch, but it is at this time that Greta is thrumming and feeling anxious again. Hans will make sure she eats and if she does eat what he considers appropriate, they will go out to the back deck, the upper half encased with glass, and he will sit beside her on the straw cushion sofa and cover her with a blanket and he will read to her. Sometimes she falls asleep with her head in his lap and his fingers in her hair. Often, she climbs onto his lap and initiates more sex, which, he hardly seems against obliging her and Greta quite likes when she can hear the springtime rain against the glass in time with their breathing. It is because of this that she doesn't protest when he still, occasionally, treats her like a child.

Some days, they make trips into town (she is content to not go to town and will only go when she truly needs something that he cannot acquire for her) and after supper they walk along the paths behind the house and around the neighborhood and Hans smiles that charming smile at the neighbor's and the wives and girls all giggle at him and cast her adoring looks when they see that Mrs. Landa is in the 'family way' and how exciting a time it must be. Greta has learned to smile a general smile and nod but not speak much and she holds his arm more tightly with both hands as she walks (so many faces and eyes that stare at her and never ending smiles and laughter and noise, so much noise) and when Hans knows she has had enough, when he can feel her fingers digging into him (she isn't even aware of it), he turns them back towards the house and back to safety.

In the evening, Hans likes to run a bath and undress Greta methodically (he folds her clothing with precision, naturally) and then he will roll his sleeves to his elbows and he will help her step into the bath with his hands under her arms (he holds her firm enough to hurt but she doesn't protest) and his face is concentrated as he carefully lowers her down. Once she is reclining, he will wash her entire body with the sponge and lavender soap and he will wash her hair if she needs it (even if she still feels clean, she enjoys his fingers soothing her scalp). Then, once the towel in his hands dries her down, she steps away from him and together they ready for bed.

She cleans her teeth and pulls on her nightgown and she allows him to comb out her hair. Sometimes, she braids it in a long plait to sleep and other times he requests that she leave it loose. Most of the time, she falls asleep once he comes into bed beside her and opens his arms. But, at night, in the dim moonlight (but still mostly dark) is when she likes to make love to him most tenderly. He, too, will take his time and it isn't with the purpose of seducing her. He is lost in sensation as she is, of dragging his lips along her neck, of spending minutes upon minutes weighing her breasts with his hands and mouth, kissing her for what could very well be hours. Some nights, they kiss until they sleep.

Early that morning, he wakes her with his lips pressed to hers. But, when she does to reach for him she finds him standing next to the bed and leaning over her and he is dressed and her eyes widen.

"Where are you going?" she croaks. Her throat is so dry.

"I have a parcel in town. It's important I get it today. I won't be long. Go back to sleep, it will be like I had never left. I promise."

Greta closes her eyes and her fingers dig into the sheets beside her and Hans says her name twice before she opens them again but her vision is blurry. He leans forward and presses his lips to her forehead once, twice, three times.  
"Go to sleep, Greta. " he sounds almost pleading. And just like that, Greta does. She sleeps and doesn't remember dong so for she opens her eyes again and is momentarily confused. Greta sighs and stretches before standing (she washes, dresses, braids) and walking to the kitchen. Hans isn't back (not yet) but she is less uneasy but still discontent. After some toast and tea, she walks to the front door with resignation and slips on her gardening boots and tucks her slacks in at the ankle before reaching for her basket and opening the front door. Greta has her head bent, and hears the man before she sees him.

"Hello there." Comes a spirited drawl not two feet away from her.

Greta presses her hand to her chest and drops the basket (it isn't heavy or particularly loud) and her mouth opens with surprise. She stares at the man and he seems to sense her shock and looks abashed.

"Apologies, ma'am. I didn't mean to frighten you there it was just that here I was just about to knock on this door and it seems as if you beat me to it." He grins with a wry smile but Greta notices how he casts his eyes quickly behind her as if he is searching for something, for someone.

"Can I help you with something, sir?" Greta has her voice back and she is relieved that she does not sound meek, nor particularly affected though her heart is thundering in her chest and her eyes sting with how hard she is staring at this man. He is reasonably tall with quite an attractively tanned face and soft colored hair but his eyes held a weary strife that she had seen on many men and women before.

"I'm looking for an old friend and I heard he ended up here. Hans Landa? Is this his address?" He asks gently.

Greta's breath hitches and for a moment she is puzzled. She thought she had heard of all of Hans's American acquaintances but perhaps she had been mistaken.

"Yes, it is. I can pass on a message if you like." She suggests with an equally soft voice. One hand lingers on the door, clutching, while the other has since left her chest to lay prone at her side. She fights a feeling of slight panic when this man's eyes seem to linger on the soft protrusion of her belly. Greta swallows and the man is looking at her again and for a moment there is a crease between his brows but it is quickly smoothed. He nods and gives his name and a message and with a bow of his head, he skips back down the front steps and around the hedge and out of sight before she can so much as react. Greta closes the door and locks it. She is shaking. She doesn't go out to garden that day. She goes to the bed, stretches out on top of the covers and stares at the window sill until Hans returns home.

When Greta hears the door opening, she stands as quickly as she can but cannot quite bring herself to move past the bed and into the hallway. Hans calls her name but she doesn't answer, she can't answer, even when he has called for her three times. Finally, he enters the bedroom and his face is puzzled when he sees her standing beside the bed, watching him. Hans can sense that she is unwell and asks her immediately if it is the baby but she gives a numb shake of her head.

"A man came to the house today?"  
"What man?"  
"The man that…he said that…he said that he gave you you're scar. He said his name was Aldo Raine." She whispers.  
Hans only remains silent for less than a minute. Though his pallor has turned ashy and his fingers are tightly curled into fists, he doesn't shout nor become angry.

"And what did he want?"  
"He didn't say-"  
"You didn't let him inside the house?"  
"What? No, of course not. What does this all mean?" Greta is aware that her voice sounds desperate but she is too alarmed to cringe.

Hans steps forwards and eases her into his arms, his palm runs over her hair and his lips ghost her cheek.  
"Nothing, it's nothing. An adversary I once had but I am untouchable now. We are untouchable I made sure of that. I made sure of all of it." He speaks into her ear with a feverish conviction, repeating his words in a low voice until Greta hushes him firmly. But still, he continues to oddly repeat his words in a lower register. "I made sure of all of it. I made sure of it, Greta. I did." He whispers to her, he holds her tightly; his fingers close tightly around her wrists. Greta kisses him but still he is panicked. He isn't spitting rage nor trembling nor seething but all the same, Greta knows that he is panicking.

"Come, now. Lie down a moment. You need some rest and then we will talk. You're right, you did well and we're safe now. Hmmm? Hans? It's alright." She cups his cheek and he seems to have calmed but she can see the machine of his brain working furiously, trying to decipher and to plot and to manage. He does as she says and he does lie down but he doesn't nap, only stares at the ceiling and Greta watches him with her hand on his chest and just doing this has her falling asleep for an afternoon she wakes, Hans is still there, staring at the ceiling and not saying a word. He hardly speaks until supper, when he does tell her of Aldo Raine and his countrymen and he gives her some detail of the events in the last month of the war but Greta knows he is skimming the surface. Seeing him like this, so contemplative and slipping, leaves a deep pit in her belly of anxiety but she manages to hold off. She needs to stay calm. That evening, they go to bed and they made love slowly but quickly and Hans is asleep soon after that.

When Greta wakes in the middle of the night, she has a sickening feeling. With trembling fingers she turns on the bedside lamp and Hans makes a soft groaning sound but otherwise remains asleep. She lifts the coverlet and stares down between her legs, at the deep red that has stained her nightgown and sheets and only then does she shake him awake. Oddly enough, she is calm as she tells him to call the Doctor and he is a flurry of movement and wide eyes. But, Greta, she leans back against the headboard and accepts the cloth between her legs without a word. Hans is shaking softly but Greta is remembering, even as suddenly, she begins to feel faint and with her hands on the towels between her legs, she can feel them fill with the warmth of her blood, of the essence that should be nurturing her babe.

It doesn't matter, Greta thinks and quite possibly says by the way Hans pauses and looks at her. It doesn't matter anymore. None of it matters anymore. There's no point. There's no point to any of it. Hans covers her forehead with his hand and distantly, she remembers how his voice trembled when he tells her that yes, it does matter. It will always matter. The physician arrives and as he readies a gauze mask over her face and she tastes a bitter a strong aroma, Greta realizes before she loses consciousness that this moment is in fact, what she has been hiding from. For all that she has done, she will know true love and have it taken from her. It is what she deserves, isn't it? But, it isn't what her child, what their child deserves and it is with that last thought, that last prayer, that Greta closes her eyes and is comforted by sleep.

*******


	9. In The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new life and an old foe.

 

Greta remains on bedrest for the remainder of her pregnancy. The doctor says it could be stress but all Greta can think is that she is already a weak mother. However, Hans points out that their child is strong and determined to be born despite the scare he or she (she, Greta knows the baby is a _she_ ) has given them. Hans takes care of her and Darcy drops by to bring them baking and home cooking and her platoon of American wives march alongside her, filing in and out of the Landa residence almost every day. This doesn’t irritate Greta as much as she thought it would and if anything, she feels a sense of guilt and anger at her own helplessness. 

    Hans doesn’t mention the man with the scars around his neck again and so Greta doesn’t mention him either though she dreams that she and Hans have to run again and yet they can’t because of the baby and the three of them die. Sometimes, Greta thinks that death would be a reprieve rather than bring her baby into this uncertain world. She doesn’t know what to do when she thinks this way and she knows that Hans can sense her unease. Sometimes he confronts her and debunks her worrying and other times he says nothing at all and Greta thinks that’s the worst of all; when even Hans would rather not let a nasty idea be uttered out loud. 

   Despite Darcy’s offer to nurse Greta in her condition, Hans let’s her tidy and cook and wash linens but no one but him touches his wife, he insists on doing all of it. Hans helps her to the toilet and into the bath and washes and plaits her hair and shaves her legs when she can no longer reach. He makes sure she drinks enough water and tea and spoon feeds her when she’s too tired to do it herself. He spends hours reading to her, tending to the garden at her instructions (something he is reluctant to do because it would leave her in the house too long without him but he still does it) and brings the carrots and onions and garlic to her bedside to show her. Greta smiles because she is pleased but she smiles even more at how eager he is to show her his efforts and to prove to her that he can care for her garden and for her and this baby.  
  
   She cries (at how happy he looks) when he leaves the room to put the vegetables in the kitchen sink. She can feel their daughter moving around in her belly, now protruding high like a full moon under her breasts and she wrestles with feeling happy, feeling content. She has felt such moments of tenderness and love from Hans and _for_ Hans in the past few months than she has in the entirety of their relationship and this terrifies her so much that she can hardly breathe when it all threatens to overwhelm her. Is this what it will always feel like to be happy? Like she’s dancing on the knife’s edge of pain? Will she always feel a sense of dread that threatens to suffocate her if she reflects too long on how beautiful life’s intricacies can be and the wonders of new life and human love and mortality?  
  
   Greta doesn’t know the answers to any of these questions and she knows Hans is one for practicality but he can also be surprisingly philosophical all the same. In the final weeks of her pregnancy, these are the quiet conversations that they whisper to each other in the darkness of their bed with their fingers intertwined. In these moments, Greta doesn’t let Hans turn on the bedside lamp because she doesn’t want to have to look into his eyes when she tells him all of her worst fears and she knows he doesn’t want her to see his when he speaks of the war and all that he has done. Greta knows that he won’t tell her everything and she doesn’t ask him to bare his secrets but she does make him swear to her that there won’t be any more surprises, not like that man that left a message for him, right before she bled. It’s a nearly impossible promise, she’s sure of it, but she makes him swear to her anyways and his conviction allows her to breathe easier and the velvet of his voice when it holds certainty and authority makes her feel safe.  
  
   Their daughter is born on a November night when the island air is chilled and the skies are cold and endlessly black. The doctor and two nurses attend them at their home and Greta gives birth on her knees with her hands clutching the bed frame and her feet grip the towels and spare sheets and they offer her relief for the pain but she doesn’t take it. She will feel all of what her daughter has to give her. Hans doesn’t let the nurses push him out of the room and he takes the cold cloths from them and sponges Greta’s face and neck, his hand between her shoulder blades as she rocks back and forth and winces and sweats and bites down hard on her lower lip until it bleeds but she doesn’t scream and she doesn’t cry. When their daughter finally slips out of Greta’s body and into the doctor’s waiting hands, Greta is immediately looking over her shoulder as they move her to the end of the bed to clear her airways and Hans cannot take his eyes off of his wife. 

   He can see that she’s exhausted and her thighs shake and her hair is slick with sweat but she won’t settle until she hears their child cry and Hans thinks to himself that in this moment, he has never felt more proud of her. Hours later, after both mother and babe are cleaned up and pronounced in fine health, Hans sits carefully on the end of the bed and watches Greta feed their daughter. It will be a couple days until her milk comes in properly, the nurse assures them, but it is still important to feed the baby with what Greta can give her for now. When the nurse suggests that some mothers don’t breastfeed at all and formula is a popular choice, Greta looks aghast. 

  
“I’m her mother and I’ll be feeding her.” she says firmly.  
  
   Hans hides his smile and goes to see the nurses and doctor out. The nurses are to return in the morning to check on them both. When he returns to the bedroom, he finds Greta examining the baby’s fingers and toes from where she’s curled up against her breast. The baby begins to squirm, her nose crinkling and Greta hushes her. She knows that she wants to be curled up and cocooned tightly but Greta can’t help examine her, this being that she’s (they’ve) made.  
  
“I’d like to name her Rosalind.” Greta says without looking up as she covers their newborn in the cotton blanket once again. She’d first heard it in Shakespeare’s _As You Like It_ and she’d always had a fondness for the name. She cradles the baby close to her chest and only then does she look up.   
  
“I thought about a German name, like Annika? But, I wasn’t sure.” She says. Hans is still at the foot of the bed, his posture not exactly relaxed as if he’s afraid of moving too carelessly and jostling his wife and child. It’s a few moments before he speaks and Greta’s fingers begin to nervously flutter around the edges of the blanket, folding it around her daughter repeatedly.  
  
“Rosalind is…fine. She doesn’t need a German name. She needs an American name if she’s going to be an American, yes?”  
  
“Yes.” Greta nods. “But I still want us to speak German to her.”  
  
“Why don’t we just add our French and your Russian and my Italian while we’re at it.” Greta knows he’s being awfully sarcastic for a man that’s just become a father but she doesn’t expect anything less and he makes her smile.  
  
“Say we do and perhaps one day she becomes a translator? She’ll be a career woman.”  
  
“She’s six hours old, Greta.”  
  
“I know. Think of all the possibility that she has before her.”  
  
   She looks down at Rosalind’s face and Hans is silent and there is a moment of awe between them, of something bigger than themselves which is all they’ve been wrapped up in more or less for the past decade. Greta feels her eyes grow damp and she blinks a few times in an attempt to keep her tears at bay.  
  
“Would you like to hold her now?” she whispers because if she speaks too loudly she might cry.

   Hans blinks. He has yet to hold the baby and he hasn’t offered to since she’s been born. If anything, Hans seems hesitant around a baby, _their baby,_ but Greta isn’t concerned. She knows it will take him time to adjust to fatherhood as he tries to suss it all out and find it’s meaning. Neither of them realize that they will never really _know_ the meaning while they live but that it won’t matter, all that will matter is the time that they have.  
  
“Yes, alright.” He says. 

   He agrees but doesn’t quite come closer until he seems to shake his head and moves so that he’s sitting next to her and Greta tells him how to position his hands and to watch Rosalind’s head and _that’s right, that’s it, he has her and it’s fine_. Greta says all of these things to him in a gentle voice but Hans doesn’t speak, he just gazes down at the baby and he is so still that Greta doesn’t think he’s even breathing. He doesn’t say anything for a long time and Greta is tired and she closes her eyes, leaning up against the pillows. As she dozes, she hears Hans whispering to his daughter in German and she can’t quite hear it all because he’s speaking so quietly and gently and sleep is trying to over take her but she knows that he tells their daughter, _I will protect you forever._  
  
   Rosalind grows stronger and more expressive by the day. They call her Rosie and she has Hans’s hazel eyes (beautiful eyes) and Greta’s dark hair and olive skin and freckles. She is walking by her first birthday and she can say _Papa_ and _Mama._ Hans never asks why Greta doesn’t want to be called _Mutti_ because the stories he’s heard of Greta’s mother are enough. Neither of them want to think or speak of their root families now that they’ve begun their own and so they don’t.  
  
   By the time Rosie is two, she has a brother. When he grows inside of Greta, she has no complications and she is as relaxed and content as she has ever been and she knows Hans is, too. Rosie keeps them both busy and it feels like their son arrives in no time at all. They call him Henry and he has Greta’s dark eyes and Hans’s lighter hair and skin (and as he grows, he will bear a startling likeness to his father) and Rosie is delighted and calls him _my baby_ and Greta’s heart is so filled with joy when she looks in on them both sleeping on the bed, she can hardly quiet her sobs because her heart no longer feels protected but like it’s sitting on the outside of her body, visible for all to see, cocooned around two tiny human beings. But, she has Hans in this with her and she has found him more than once just watching Rosie sleep after he has finished reading to her in the afternoons and watches his eyes change from calculating to calm when Rosie tells him that she loves him whenever it strikes her fancy, which is often and so pure that Greta always smiles when she hears it.  
  
   When Henry is one, Hans receives a letter. Greta watches him open it at the kitchen table, Rosie in his lap and Henry in hers, refusing to sit still and eat his porridge. He is squirming out of Greta’s arms and beginning to fuss while Rosie shoots her brother an unimpressed look while she munches strawberry’s primly from her perch on her Papa’s lap. Greta is distracted with Henry and can feel her patience nagging but knows it’s because her son is cutting his teeth because she’d been through the same thing with Rosie at this age. Hans stands from the table, settles Rosie back in his seat and leaves the kitchen without a word, the letter clenched in his fist.  
  
   Greta goes to call out after him but Henry begins to wail in ernest and after a few minutes, the three of them are settled in the back garden. Rosie is running around the garden and chasing the spring butterflies and telling Greta to _look, Mama, look at them_ and Greta is sitting on the grass, Henry nursing at her breast.  
  
   “He’s supposed to be weaning.” Hans’s voice is tense (annoyed) behind her and Greta gives a start and Henry scrapes her with his teeth because of it and she winces.  
  
   “Yes, I’m aware of that, but he has a fever and this is the only thing that will make him stop screaming or do you forget how Rosie was?” She hisses to him quietly and sends him a sharp glare for good measure. Hans’s eyes are simmering from where he stands beside her and she feels her belly clenching with nervous energy because she hasn’t seen him look at her that way in a long time; like they’re on the verge of fighting with one another. Hans sits beside her, leaning back on his hands. Greta can feel him looking at her and her cheeks are flushing. She feels like she might cry, which is ridiculous, though Hans has never made a critical comment about her mothering, not once, and she realizes that it stings more than she could have predicted.  
  
   “I don’t forget how Rosie was. I was only saying-“ Hans begins to speak quietly to her, like he's calming a wild beast and it makes Greta even more explosively angry. Henry has fallen asleep with her nipple still in his mouth and she gently pulls away and speaks as she adjusts her wrap around dress to cover herself again and shifts Henry closer to her as he sleeps.  
  
   “Well it seems to me like you certainly do! Probably because you were too busy getting me pregnant again, hmm?”  
  
   It’s a low blow and she regrets it the moment she says it. She closes her eyes and calms down her breathing and she knows it’s the letter that’s scaring her and the way Hans came into the garden looking like the Hans she knew before their children were born. Before he can say anything else, Rosie runs up to him and wraps her arms around his neck and asks Hans to take her to the park down the street and Greta uses that time to come to her knees on the grass and Hans stands as well and holds his arms out for Henry but Greta refuses his help. She knows that it angers him by the slow exhale he releases through his teeth that she knows intends to be a growl but he won’t quite show his anger just yet, not with Rosie in front of them.  
  
   “Mama and Henry (she pronounces her brother’s name as _hen-wee_ ) come to the park, too?” Rosie asks as the four of them walk back into the house. Greta shakes her head.  
  
   “No, Henry has to sleep. You and Papa go and we’ll stay here.” she walks with Henry in her arms and Rosie trailing in front of her up the stairs to the nursery. She places Henry in his crib and gets Rosie changed and prepared to go to the park in a matter of minutes but the movements are methodical on Greta’s part for her mind is elsewhere ( _what is in that letter, what does it say, what does it mean, are they safe)._ Greta doesn’t say a word to Hans as she walks Rosie downstairs and to the foyer where he’s waiting for their daughter, dressed in his coat and leather gloves and holding his hand out to her. Hans leaves with Rosie and Greta immediately heads to the bedroom. She searches the bureau and his bedside table and his desk in the study  and of course he hasn’t left the letter behind because _why would he_ and Greta let’s out a frustrated groan and only has a moment to huff about it before Henry’s cries have her going upstairs and spending the next hour trying to settle him down.  
  
   Hans returns and makes them lunch. Greta barely touches her food and has to nurse Henry again at the table. She freezes baby cloths and lets Henry chew on it, like she did with Rosie and the evening is quieter for them both though Henry refuses to be put down to nap and he won’t go to Hans without fussing for Greta. By the time that it comes to bathe the children, Greta is tired and Hans wordlessly puts tea in front of her and bathes Rosie and Henry alone. Greta covers her face with her hands from where she sits on the sofa and let’s out an exhausted sob.  
  
   Rosie goes down to sleep once Hans has read her not one, not two but _three_ stories and Greta keeps Henry downstairs and she’s nursing him on the bed when Hans walks into the bedroom. Henry is close to sleeping and Hans says nothing as he goes into their adjacent bathroom and shuts the door. When he comes out twenty minutes later, dressed in pyjamas, Henry is sleeping in her arms. Hans walks over to her side of the bed and wordlessly he takes Henry from her but instead of putting him in the bassinet in their room, like they would do most nights, he takes Henry upstairs and Greta knows it’s because he anticipates a fight. Greta is tense on the bed and she moves to stand by her vanity, pacing idly. She’s listening for Hans and yet he still manages to come into the room quiet as ever and she’s instantly baring her teeth like a hunting lioness.

   “Who was that letter from?” she demands.  
  
   Hans shuts the bedroom door behind him but doesn’t show her his back. His eyes are following her as she paces, arms crossed under her breasts, nightgown slipping over one shoulder.  
  
   “Leave it, Greta.” he warns though his words are hardly abided by her and Greta is offended that he would even think that she would leave _anything_ alone just because he said so.  
  
   “Leave it? Leave it! You read that letter and have a very obvious change in mood. We never get any letters because we don’t have any family that would write to us, so tell me. What. Was. It. About.” Her hand slaps on the vanity table with each word and Hans is coming closer to her.  
  
   “You want to know what that letter is about?” He is purring but not in pleasure (though perhaps with some pleasure because Hans has always enjoyed torturing her _just a little_ ) and he is clearly irritated. Greta scoffs.  
  
   “Obviously!” she hisses.  
  
   Hans reaches around her to the vanity and she can smell his cedar scented soap from when he washed earlier and normally she would like it but she’s angry at him but most of all she’s nervous. He opens the vanity drawer and reaches inside and closes it again and he’s holding the letter, a little crumpled but still in tact, in front of her face. He doesn’t say anything and she stares at it and his expression is far from ruffled and she takes the letter from his hand.  
  
   “Who is it from?” she says quietly.  
  
   “Why don’t you read it and find out?” he says calmly. Too calmly. Greta’s fingers shake a little as she unfolds the letter and she reads it over once, twice, three times. It’s not very long but it’s signed _Aldo Raine_ and Greta closes her eyes. If no one knew Aldo Raine and Hans Landa’s history then they might mistake the letter for cordial, even friendly. Greta knows that it’s exactly the opposite.  
  
   “How many…how many letters have you received from him?” Her voice is hollow and her fingers feel numb where they still hold the letter.  
  
   “Just this one.”  
  
   “So he waits three, nearly four years to write you and wish you and your family well and to remind you that he knows where you are and _where your children are_ and he can’t do anything to us but in the meantime he’ll have us live in paranoia for as long as it pleases him?”  
  
   “He’s not the kind of man that harms women and children, it isn’t in his character.”  
  
   “But he’ll settle for terrorizing them instead?” Her voice is trembling with rage (fear).  
  
   Hans reaches forward and takes the letter from her hand, folds it back up into crisp lines and tosses it back on the vanity as if it’s meaningless ( _how can he not be afraid?_ )

   “You were never meant to see it.”  
  
   “Then why hide it in _my_ vanity, Hans?”  
  
   “I was planning to burn it later and I knew you would be searching through my desk and my side table and the bureau and the closet but wouldn't think to look in your own common areas.” His expression is wilfully unapologetic and borderline smug and Greta wants to scream but settles for slapping his face instead. His head snaps to the side and his jaw clicks but he doesn’t react even as her fingerprints blossom red and angry on his cheekbone.  
  
   “How dare you try to keep this a secret from me! These are _my_ children and I have a right to know if they’re in danger. I have a _right_ to say if we take them away from this damn island and out of that bastards reach!” She is speaking quietly and her voice doesn’t hide her terrible rage (fear, so much fear) and Hans has slowly come to look at her again while she’s speaking and she sees his nostrils flaring and he’s angry (afraid) but she doesn’t acknowledge it (she can’t see it, not yet).  
  
   “We won’t be going anywhere. We won’t be running from our home and we certainly won’t be teaching _our_ children to run.” His voice is quiet but Greta knows by the way he holds her gaze unwaveringly that he is unsettled and he is on the edge, just like she is.  
  
   “I never said anything about _we._ You can stay here for Aldo Raine to find you and we’ll be long gone.” She pushes past him ( _roughly_ ) and she knows by the sudden grip of his hands on her hips, pulling her back so hard that she stumbles, that it is the wrong thing to say. She doesn’t truly mean it and she wouldn’t want to see him hurt but she also knows that if she needed to choose her children over her husband, there wouldn’t be any hesitation to letting him go no matter how painful it would be. She knows, too, that it’s unfair of her to think that Hans would be any less self sacrificial for their children. Perhaps this is why she doesn't struggle when he shoves her into the vanity and her hands catch herself on the glossy mahogany top and he pushes her further down with his left hand between her shoulder blades until she’s all but bent over it and his other hand jerks her nightgown up and out of the way and his open palm lands on her right buttock _hard._ Greta yelps and begins to say his name but his hand lands again and again and _again_ and _Christ_ but it does hurt and her spine is tingling with feeling and she’s trying to arc away from him but it only pushes her arse further towards his hand and his other is so heavy against her back ( _forcing her down, down, down_ ) and Greta’s eyes are wide but she can only see his frame out of the corner of her eye, the swing of his arm but not his hand hitting her flesh.  
  
    It’s around the eighth strike that Greta realizes he’s not letting up any time soon and she let’s out a miserable groan of pain and begs him to stop but Hans delivers a sharp, _even harder_ smack to her left buttock and she yelps in shock and when he does this, he has to move his hand from between her shoulder blades and she straightens up to where she’s nearly standing again but he’s faster than her and his right hand catches her arm and twists it behind her back and Greta gasps and whimpers in pain and he forces her back to lean over the vanity again. His movements are as controlled with his left hand and with the same (impressive) measure of force he delivers nine more blows to her left buttock. Greta whines softly and begs him to stop, especially when she begins to moan around the third blow and every one after that and it's like she can't stop herself and her face flushes pink in mortification, surely as pink as her arse. He doesn’t listen to her and Greta knows that he’ll not stop until he gets to ten and when he does, Greta is out of breath and even worse she knows that she’s _wet_ and her nipples are hard and leaking from being pressed against the vanity top and she’s struggling for air and she can hear Hans breathing behind her but he sounds far from laboured.  
  
   He could continue doing this, if he wanted to. Greta inhales roughly and he doesn’t move behind her, just stands there and she doesn’t look at him from where she’s still bent over because she _can’t_. His fingers graze along her raw bottom and Greta gasps sharply and nearly chokes when he slips two fingers straight inside of her with ease. Her palms feel sweaty and they grasp for purchase at the vanity so that she doesn’t fall ( _down, down, down)_ but all she can hear is her heartbeat roaring in her ears and all she can feel are his fingers working in and out of her and he’s far from careful about it. Suddenly she feels his breath against her heated arse cheeks and she tenses and remains still and his hands knead her sore flesh and she moans miserably but when he surges forward with a growl and his tongue slips inside of her from behind, Greta let’s out a muffled scream into her fist. She thinks distantly that he won’t let her come like this (and also that she wants to see what he looks like, knelt behind her, his face buried between her legs) but she should know better because he makes sure that she does to make it even more humiliating for her and she knows she _deserves this_ for doubting him.  
  
   He stands while her thighs are shaking and she doesn't think she can stand on her own but it doesn’t matter because he’s wound her long plait around his fist and vaguely she feels a sensation in her scalp but she doesn’t realize what he’s done until he jerks her head back ( _hard_ ) and Greta groans and her back is arched in a c-shape and the front of her nightgown is damp and her eyes hold his in the mirror and he’s stripped off his cotton pyjama top and she feels him pressed hard against her lower back. He continues to hold her hair, giving her warning, pulsing tugs as his other hand pulls her nightgown from her body, starting at her shoulders and working down until it piles at their feet. He grabs at her breasts roughly and her eyes flutter because they’re sensitive and his palm smears traces of her milk down her belly and then he’s shifting his pants down just enough to guide himself inside of her and her plait is still taught in his fist, her chin tipped back against her will, her lips parted and he’s watching her take him in with darkened eyes and she is completely exposed this way. He doesn’t waste any time in beginning to set a hard, quick pace of fucking her and that’s precisely what he's doing, _fucking_ , and Greta wants to close her eyes but every time she tries he gives her head a sharp jerk and it makes her gasp and _moan_ and _whine_ because by Zeus himself, he is devastating like this and she doesn’t think she can take it but he doesn’t exactly give her a choice. When he begins to speak, she almost doesn't hear him over the pulsing in her ears and the staccato of her breathing.  
  
   “You won’t ever leave me, will you?” He’s growling against the back of her neck, just behind her ear and her spine is spasming and he’s forcing them both to lean forward and he’s still holding her hair and tugging her head to the side so that he can rest his chin against the slope of her neck, his lips pressing against her ear. 

   “No!” She gasps ( _brokenly_ ) and she meets his thrusts as best as she can and her arse is tender but she rolls herself back against his hips and he’s stretching her _so good_ that she can’t stop, doesn’t want him to stop making her feel this way either (so out of control). 

   “Swear to me.” He hisses and his hips are punishing and she realizes that he hasn’t been this forceful with her for too long and she’s missed him like this. They still have a healthy sex life that hasn’t slowed but it has become _different._

“I swear it. Please…Hans…harder…harder.” She begs him between moans and her voice is utterly _wrecked_ and he pulls out of her and before she can protest he’s spun her around to face him and sat her on the vanity and Greta could howl if she had the breath as her arse touches the unforgiving surface but he’s shoved himself back between her legs and wrapped his hand around her throat, the other gripping her hip for dear life and he’s inside her again and going so hard that Greta let’s out a laugh which is quickly silenced by his squeezing hand. She liked this side of him when she was younger (when they were both younger) and he would play with her like this and make her vaguely afraid but never enough ( _just enough_ ) to ask him to stop. She reaches down and touches her clit and he leans forward and his pelvis is rubbing at her _just right_ and she grips his shoulders and his hand leaves her throat and slides behind her back and tugs on her her plait to arc her further towards him and her head is in an awkward position against the vanity mirror but she stops caring the moment his tongue swirls around her left nipple and latches on _tight_. Her nails score his shoulder as his thrusts slow in pace but are still _deep_ and his mouth tugs at her breast and it’s the sound of his greedy moans that has her pulsing against him and letting out a hoarse scream as she is engulfed in (the fires of The Underworld) her orgasm. His mouth stays full of her breast as he fills her with his release and his moans reverberate through her rib cage and if he is Hades then she is Persephone because she is in far too deep to ever turn her back on him. 

   Hans is leaning against her bonelessly, his breath puffing harshly against her neck, his entire weight pinning her to the vanity but while her body feels sated (though vaguely cramped), her mind feels safe like this and if she feels Hans’s tears against her shoulder, she doesn’t say anything as her fingers run through his hair. She is becoming slowly more and more aware that her arse is on fire but Hans is humming and kissing her and she meets his tongue with hers at a languid pace and sighs into his mouth and she whispers against his lips that she loves him. He presses a kiss to the hollow of her throat and mouths the sentiment back to her against her skin as he eases her off the vanity with his hands on her hips. He looks over her shoulder in the mirror and his brow furrows for a moment as he reaches behind her and she feels him pluck the letter, now flattened and damp, from where it sticks to her flushed arse. 

  Greta stares at him as he holds it in front of her as if to show her his findings and her lips begin to twitch as she realizes the absurdity that they literally just had sex on _top_ of the bloody letter and she begins to laugh and Hans chuckles, too. She kisses him and pads (albeit shakily) over to the bathroom to clean up. When she comes back into the bedroom a few minutes later, Hans is in bed and the letter is no longer on the vanity (she will never see it nor will she ask him about it again). She has let her hair loose from it’s plait because frankly, her scalp is sore and as she gingerly climbs under the covers without bothering to wear her nightgown, Hans asks her about why she’s taken her hair down for always keeps it plaited and out of her way at night.  
  
   “Why, do you feel like pulling on it some more?”  
  
   Her answer is cheeky and when Hans looks surprisingly chagrined, she leans forward and kisses him, her fingers stroking his jaw tenderly.  
  
   “Don’t worry, I’m no worse for wear. Though, maybe I’ll have to avoid sitting on chairs for the next couple of days.”  
  
   Hans hums in agreement but he doesn’t apologize to her and Greta isn’t asking him to. Her fingers tip under his chin and he looks at her and she presses her lips to his again, softly.  
  
   “I know you’ll keep us safe. I…I just…sometimes I worry-“ She is beginning to stutter but Hans presses his index finger to her lips and hushes her.  
  
   “I should have told you, not tried to keep it a secret. I won’t do that again.” He says and even though Greta doesn’t quite believe that he won’t keep a secret from her in the future or continue to keep old secrets from her even now, she does believe that he knows better then to keep her in the dark about their children. She settles down against his chest and she sleeps surprisingly well and even Henry sleeps through the night and the following morning seems like the previous day was just a far away, bad dream except for the proof on her bruised arse but when she gets a good look, Greta feels far from upset. Two months later, she’ll track the conception of their third child (another daughter whom they will call Violet) back to that night. When she is born on the night of a violent summer storm, the labour is as shocking and strenuous (her worst yet) as was Violet’s conception but well worth it, in the end.  
  
   A couple days later, when the storm has passed, the Landa’s and their young children file out into the back yard and Hans sets out the blanket and basket of food and Rosie and Henry are glued to Greta’s side from where she carefully sits so that they can look at Violet. She looks entirely like Greta and has dark hair and olive skin and dark eyes (though as she grows older, she’ll have more of Hans’s harsh practicality than any of their children). Both are skeptical that they were ever this small even though their parents keep insisting that they were indeed once as small as Violet at the beginning of their lives. So far, Rosie is enthralled while Henry is wary of their new sister. They eat and Violet calmly sleeps on while Rosie and Henry set to chasing each other around the garden. Greta is still sore and Hans takes Violet in his arms, his back against the shade of the arbutus tree, so that Greta can lie down with her head in his lap.  
  
   Some time later, Rosie and Henry return to their parents, both chatting excitedly and Hans shushes them so that Mama can rest and both quiet down instantly and Henry whispers to her if _Mama is ok?_ Greta smiles and reaches her hand out to him and tells him that she’s fine, just sleepy. Henry takes her hand and comes to lie beside her with his head propped up against Hans’s calf. Rosie comes and cuddles up against Hans so she can peer at Violet again and she asks for him to tell them a story and so Hans tells them the story of how he and Greta met. It’s a fantasy and mentions nothing about the third reich or her parents or _The Basterds_ or _The Jew Hunter,_ though, there are some elements of truth to it. 

   He tells their children how beautiful their mother was when he first saw her (they giggle at that) and about their wedding and how bad things happened in Germany and Austria and they had to leave and find a new home. He tells them of the great boats and trains and aeroplanes (Rosie and Henry always express disbelief at an automobile that can fly through the clouds and Hans promises to show them one day) it took to travel to America. When Rosie is drowsy against the blanket and Henry is cuddled against Greta’s side, she closes her eyes again and she hears Hans whisper the same words that he always does, when their children have first come into the world and every night that they go to sleep. 

“I will protect you forever.”  
  
His voice is quiet but melodious, one hand reaching down to smooth over Greta’s shoulder.  
  
And she smiles.  
  
| The End | 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it - the ending of a piece of work that took me five years to finish. I've contemplated doing a collection of one-shots based off of scenes that I didn't include in the final chapter, including scenes further into the future. I may write them if I think there's some interest for it and I'm open to requests! Thank you to anyone and everyone who ever gave me a kind word about this piece and has enjoyed this story. As per usual, all grammatical errors are my own and I don't have a Beta etc. Feel free to hit me up on my tumblr, rjplummer. Xx.


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